Theoretical and numerical simulation analysis of the control effect of isolation piles on surface settlement induced by foundation pit excavation

This study investigates the control effect of isolation piles on ground settlement resulting from foundation pit excavation. Based on the three-stage analysis method, first, the Kerr three-parameter foundation model is introduced, and the deflection differential equation is derived to solve the horizontal displacement of the diaphragm wall. Then, based on the horizontal displacement of the diaphragm wall, the boundary element method is used to calculate the additional stress at the boundary of the foundation pit, and the horizontal additional displacement and additional stress of the soil free field at the position of the isolation pile are obtained using the Mindlin solution. Subsequently, soil free field additional stress is applied to the pile foundation, and the shielding effect of group piles is also considered. Based on the Kerr three-parameter foundation model, the deflection differential equation of the pile foundation under the influence of horizontally oriented additional stress is established to solve the horizontal displacement of the isolated piles. Finally, the boundary element method is used again to invert the additional stress caused by the horizontal displacement of the isolation pile, and the surface settlement after the isolation pile is calculated in combination with the Mindlin vertical displacement solution. The spatial finite element model is established and compared with the theoretical calculation results to prove the rationality of the theory. The influence of basic construction parameters is analyzed theoretically, and it is found that the surface settlement is reduced by 30.9% compared with no isolation pile. Of the selected parameters in this paper, the effects of the isolation pile's controlled diameter, spacing, and elastic modulus, the thickness and elastic modulus of the diaphragm wall on the surface settlement are 4.9 mm, 3.1 mm, 3.3 mm, 3 mm, 1.7 mm, respectively, which are 45.4%, 28.7%, 30.6%, 27.8%, 15.7% of the standard working conditions, respectively. This shows that optimization of the isolation pile parameters has the best effect on surface settlement, optimization of the diaphragm wall parameters has the poor effect.