Study on the distribution law of sidewall earth pressure during the sinking stage of a super large open caisson

Considering the open caisson of the Changtai Yangtze River Bridge project as the research object, based on the monitoring data of the sidewall soil pressure during the sinking process of the caisson foundation, the distribution characteristics of the sidewall soil pressure are analyzed. A new distribution model for the sidewall soil pressure was proposed in comparison with the existing distribution model. The analysis results show that the soil pressure of the sidewall increases linearly in a specific range with the sinking depth of the caisson and then decreases with the depth after reaching the peak, and finally remains constant. Furthermore, the location corresponding to the peak value of the sidewall soil pressure moves down with the increase in the sinking depth.