Soil-Structure-Foundation Interaction Analysis of New Roller-Compacted Concrete North Lock Wall at McAlpine Locks.

A new lock is to be constructed at the McAlpine Locks on the Ohio River at Louisville, KY. The new lock chamber will be defined by rock-founded, gravity, earth-retaining monoliths. One of the alternatives is to construct the walls using roller compacted concrete (RCC) with a concrete facing, with the culverts located in the floor of the lock chamber. The principal objective of this study is to assess the soil-to-structure-to-foundation interactions of a typical RCC lock wall two-dimensional section. Due to the nature of the problem, the conventional analysis techniques, which are based upon the equations of equilibrium and assumed stress distributions made along imaginary sections, did not provide sufficient information to satisfactorily evaluate the performance of this structure with regard to its interaction with the rock foundation and soil backfill. The general-purpose, nonlinear, incremental construction, finite element computer program, SOILSTRUCT-ALPHA is used to analyze the complex interactions among the lock, the backfill, and the foundation rock strata. The analysis is accomplished in three phases. The first phase of the analysis introduces the self-weight of the existing locks and existing backfill to the shale and limestone foundation.