NANJING WANHUI NEW MATERIAL TECHNOLOGY CO.LTD

A sheet pile wall is a row of interlocking, vertical pile segments installed to form an essentially straight wall with a plan dimension sufficiently large enough for its behavior to allow for the analysis of a .3048-meter (1 foot) wide vertical  segment of the wall cross-section. Sheet pile walls are typically used as earth retaining structures along shorelines to allow for higher exposed grades to occur adjacent to lower river bottoms, dredge or mud lines. Sheet piling can also be used to retain fill around open landside excavations via rectangular trenches or circular cofferdams.

There are two primary types of sheet pile walls.  

A cantilevered sheet pile is a wall that derives its support entirely through the interaction with the surrounding soil. An anchored sheet pile is a wall that derives its support through a combination of interaction between the surrounding soil and one or more mechanical anchors, or braces in the case of open excavations, which restrict the lateral deflection of the wall [Figure #1]. Support from the surrounding soil for both types of walls refers primarily to the passive soil pressure exerted on the embedded portion of the wall

Cofferdams are a special form of sheet pile walls in which the primary method of resistance to horizontal soil pressures is provided through the global capacity of a circular cell to function as either a compression ring (in the case of an excavation) or via hoop stresses resisted by the interlock joints (in the case of a backfilled structure in open water).  As with a cantilevered sheet pile wall the height, or depth of excavation, of a cofferdam is limited but can be increased through the introduction of compression or tension ring beams.