Abstract:

The bucket-based structure is a new type of hydraulic structure that can better adapt to hostile environments such as deeper water, big waves, and silt soils of low bearing capacity. Its stability depends mainly on the deadweight of barrel structure and interaction of the barrel and earth to resist external loads. Therefore, the level and distribution of soil pressure are primary factors in the calculation of bucket foundation revetment structure. In view of practical engineering, a 3D elasto-plastic finite element model is established to analyze interaction between the structure and the soil. Analyses of the soil pressure and the barrel's vertical and circular distributions are performed with different thickness of reclamation silt. It is compared with the calculation results of the soil's limit equilibrium using the Rankine's soil pressure theory. The traditional formula for active and passive soil pressure is revised, and displacement of the structure with different thickness of reclamation silt is also analyzed. Calculation error in soil pressure between the traditional and the proposed methods is 25%, and the bucket-based structure as a whole tilts toward the land reclamation silt side. The maximum angle is 1.24 times larger than that without reclamation silt, and the maximum subsidence is 1.16 times.

Key words: bucket-based structure, reclamation silt, soil pressure, structure displacement, stability analysis