Retaining wall behaviour in Dublin's estuarine deposits, Ireland

Practising engineers in the Dublin, Ireland, area have much experience in dealing with the boulder clay which underlies much of the city. However, significant deposits of estuarine soils, some of them soft, exist along the east side of the city and in particular in Dublin docklands. Some construction difficulties have previously been encountered in these materials and significant developments, including a large tunnel project, are planned in the area overlying these deposits. Few published data exist on retaining wall schemes in the deposits. Data from nine sites, including three detailed case histories, are presented which confirm that construction of deep propped excavations and cantilever walls up to 7·5 m are feasible in these deposits and can perform well. A key issue is the soil that is located at excavation level and competent deposits here are essential to prevent large displacements or possible instability. The resulting movement will also be sensitive to the overall system stiffness. There seems to be scope for more efficient future design, including more use of cantilever walls, particularly for temporary works purposes. Beam-on-spring type computer analyses tend to give conservative results for these deposits and more sophisticated finite-element analyses may be warranted for future schemes.