Recommended changes to Eurocode 7

Abstract

The current versi on of Part 1 of Eurocode 7, EN 1997 - 1 was published in 2004 and in 2010 supers e ded the previous national standards for geotechnical design in most of the CEN member countries. To ensure that European Standards remain current and state - of - the art documents, they are reviewed and revise d regularly. Hence a review of Eurocode 7, and also the other Eurocodes, has been launched by CEN. In preparation for the later revision of Eurocode 7, a number of Evolution Groups were established by CEN TC250/SC7, which is r e- sponsible for the development and maintenance of Eurocode 7. Evolution Group 3 (EG3) was established to prepare model solutio ns of e x- amples design ed to Eurocode 7. In this paper by three EG3 members , the findings from some of these model solutions to examp les invol v- ing spread foundation s , pi le foundations and a re taining wall are presented, together with the recommendation s for changes to Eurocode 7 arising from the m to cl arify Eurocode 7 and impr ove its ease of use . The recommended changes inclu d e more gui dance o n the se lection of characteristic values , the simplification and clarification of the partial factors and how they are appli ed, and guidance on how and when to take model uncertainty into account. Other factors mentioned to improve the clarity and i mprove Eurocode 7, but not discussed in detail, include the need for a section on reinforced earth, and more guidance on how to treat water pressures and servic e ability limit state d e sign