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C. Capraru:
"Studies on the calculation methods of deep excavations";
Supervisor, Reviewer: A. Chirica, D. Adam; Technische Universität für Bauingenieurwissenschaften Bukarest, 2012; oral examination: 2012-09-06.

The increasing density of urban areas has made tall buildings with deep foundations a necessity.
In these conditions the car parking and other facilities are located in their basements. The increase of the foundation depth of these buildings has generated the need for larger and stiffer retaining works. This trend is also reinforced by the need to found on stiffer soils and the one of creating underground areas for locating their utilities.
The present research aims at analysing the influence of parameters that controls the performance of deep excavations from the point of view of the effects on the already existing neighbouring buildings. Bearing this in mind, the influence of the existing buildings upon the response of new excavations is analysed. Since the relation between the excavation and the neighbouring building is considered reciprocal, the effects of new excavations on the behaviour of neighbouring buildings are also taken into account. Furthermore, this research also analysis the influence of building type on its admissible deformation, induced by excavations in their vicinity, as well as the parameters variation for quantifying the performance of excavations with the building-excavation distance. Moving onwards, one can observe the relation between the overburden loads of the neighbouring building and the performance of excavations (expressed in terms of forces and lateral deformations of the retaining wall, as well as the prop forces).
The research is motivated by the problem regarding the performance of deep excavations in soft to medium soils such as the ones in Romania. Thus, there is a need to perform very good estimations regarding the soil displacements since this is a very important criterion for preventing the damage of neighbouring constructions and utility networks. Using nonlinear finite element analysis represents a rational technique which is frequently used in current practice as it can integrate constitutive models for simulating soils´ real behaviour; it also takes into account the complexity of the various construction stages. The above-mentioned arguments motivate the choice made, that is - nonlinear finite element analysis which is also very useful in estimating the soil´s response for deep excavations and the reciprocal relation between this and the existing neighbouring buildings.

http://publik.tuwien.ac.at/files/PubDat_235201.pdf