Keywords: deep excavation, causes of failure, limit states design, back analysis, finite element, PLAXIS.

In the last few years, frequent collapses of buildings and/or utilities caused by adjacent deep excavations were recorded in Egypt. These failures are often associated with considerable economic and/or human life loss. In this paper, some of the causes of failure of embedded walls are discussed focusing on small to medium scale projects. The causes of failure are classified to pre-construction causes, construction causes and building regulation based causes. This paper also proposes the use of geotechnical limit states design (LSD) philosophy for the design of embedded walls as an alternative to the working stress design method currently adopted in the Egyptian geotechnical code of practice number (202/2001). The advantages of proper application of the geotechnical LSD on minimizing this type of failure are discussed and additional measures required to suit the Egyptian geotechnical construction practice are proposed.

An in-depth investigation on the causes of failure of a recent case of deep excavation which resulted in total collapse of an adjacent, seven storey residential building in Giza, Egypt is carried out. The study includes intensive geotechnical investigation, site observations, numerical back analyses and analysis of the results to deduce lessons learned from this case. Finally a number of recommendations are suggested to minimize the failure of embedded walls.

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