I am proposing a tool that allows users to perform the preliminary design of a wing wall with cantilever soldier piles, No Wall No Worry.
Intended users
The intended users are structural and geotechnical engineers during bid time for proposals. Specifically, this tool will be based on WSDOT and AASHTO standards for wing walls along bridges.
Need you’re trying to provide a solution or support for
I am seeking to reduce the time spent on preliminary designs for bid proposals by creating a tool for generating the lengths and sizing of soldier piles without the need for a complete design and calculation package.
Inputs
- Maximum Wall Height
- Wall Length
- Soil Type
- Location of Water Table
- Concrete Casing Size
Underlying logic of the model you’ll implement
The model will take in the maximum height of the wall and the soil type to determine the loading on the tallest pile. The spacing of the soldier piles will first be found based on the length of the wall, rounded to the nearest half foot and within a range of 6’-10’. The loading is based on the pressure and coefficients associated with the different soil types, which the user will be allowed to pick between. It is also influenced by the spacing between the piles due to the contribution of tributary width on the piles. The soil loading is combined with water loading, which is determined if the height of the wall extends below the water table in which the pressure from the water is multiplied by the height of the submerged component of the wall. An additional component for live load surcharge will be added, but as this number is relatively standard across soldier pile walls, it will not be an option as an input from the user. Once the loading is established, a deflection calculation will ensue with service loading in which the pile will be treated as a cantilever beam, and it will be determined at which embedment length the beam meets the deflection criteria of being less than 1% of its height. Next, the strength case will be taken and the maximum moment of the pile will be found, using a similar simplified model of a cantilever with a fixed end condition. This maximum moment will be used to determine the sizing of the pile by ensuring that capacity of the chosen section is larger than that of the demand. This will all be done for the tallest cantilever.
Outputs
- Number of Soldier Piles
- Preliminary Soldier Pile Sizing
- Spacing of Soldier Piles
- Length of Soldier Piles