Lateral resistance of a single pile embedded in sand with cavities

Abstract EN

The research presents an experimental study of the interaction between cavity and adjacent pile in sandy soil.

Experimental studies were performed to investigate the effects of the different factors (such as cavity locations, batter angle of pile, pulling height and vertical dead loads) on the lateral movements, rotations, and ultimate lateral resistance of the pile for three states of soil (dry, water at rest and water flowing laterally).

The analysis of the experimental results of the dry models indicate that the model tests for very deep or shallow cavity with negative distance ratio( the horizontal distance from the centerline of the pile to the centerline of the cavity, S/B=-8) carries more load than the cavity case with positive distance ratio.

Different failure modes can be observed for each model tests depending upon the geometry of the problem.

The resistance of the batter pile are generally smaller than that of the vertical pile case for cavity with ( depth of the cavity to length of the pile, D/L=1 and S/B=0).

Also for the same cavity location, the effects of lateral load position on batter pile are very low.

The pile with vertical dead load of (228.6 N) carries more lateral load than pile with no vertical load for the same cavity condition.

This behavior is reversed for soil without cavity.

In spite of that the constant lateral load is greater than the ultimate lateral resistance of the case (F.S=0.8) during the observations of the lateral displacement with time, failure does not occur for cavity condition with (D/L=0.5 and S/B=-8).

The results of the model tests with the presence of the water show the methodology of the water flowing in the lateral load direction is more dangerous on the pile stability than water at rest state for no cavity condition, but the water at rest becomes very dangerous state for any cavity condition.