Design and Construction Aspects of the Largest "Pile Curtain" Retaining Structure Built in the Tropical Soil of the Brazilian Central Area

This paper presents unpublished data on the largest excavation and retaining structure of the "pile curtain" type already constructed in the Center of Brazil, more specifically at the city of Brasília. This city is characterized by having a tropical, unsaturated, collapsible sandy clay soil known as the Brasília "porous" clay. These soil characteristics are reproduced, with some differences, in most areas of the Brazilian Central Plateau. Hence, the paper briefly discusses about project details and presents the simplified design approach adopted for the retaining structure that was carried out with the Geofine (www.fine.cz) software package. This case history is also under scrutiny of an on going research thesis, which aims the interpretation of its instrumented results and the establishment of more refined numerical analyses.