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This paper investigated the installation effects of a driven prestressed high-strength concrete (PHC) nodular pile in deep soft clay through full-scale tests, and the behavior of a driven PHC nodular pile is analyzed based on the field test results. The test results demonstrated that the driven PHC nodular pile installation process induced significant disturbance in the surrounding soil. The excess pore water pressures (Δu) that were induced by the installation of a driven PHC nodular pile were larger than the Δu that were induced by the installation of a driven PHC pipe pile. The driven PHC nodular pile installation caused significant Δu in the soil down to 2 m below the pile base, and the Δu became much smaller in the soil at 4 m below the pile base. The Δu dissipated slowly in the soft clay layers, and the Δu in the surficial soil layers dissipated faster than that in the deep soil layers. The nodules along the PHC nodular pile shaft could increase the pile shaft capacity. The measured shaft resistances of 350(400)-mm PHC nodular piles were 1.17–1.18 times the calculated shaft resistances of 350-mm PHC pipe piles in soft clay layers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some field measurements indicate that obvious deformations may occur in retaining structures due to dewatering before excavation. To investigate this problem, a time-dependent analysis method for the interaction between retaining piles and stratified saturated soils with transversely isotropic property due to pre-excavation dewatering (PED) is established by the coupling of the extended precise integration method (PIM) and the finite element method (FEM). Numerical examples are carried out to verify the proposed method and study the influence of some key parameters on the time-dependent behavior of retaining piles, which indicated that the pile deformation and its growth rate are closely related to the incorporate stiffness of retaining piles and the characterization of soils, and the deflection pattern of the retaining pile depends on the pumping depth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of field tests performed to investigate the installation effects of pre-bored grouted planted (PGP) pile in deep clayey soil. The variation of horizontal soil displacements, excess pore water pressures and lateral soil pressures was measured in the PGP pile installation process. The test results show that the drilling and grouting process induced large horizontal soil displacements in the soil within a radial distance of 2 d (d is pile diameter), and the maximum horizontal soil displacements induced by the drilling and grouting process were smaller than 15.9 mm when the radial distance reached 4–5 d. Moreover, the horizontal soil displacements decreased along the soil layer depth, as the superficial soil layers were of small deformation modulus and lateral soil pressure. The drilling process brought large excess pore water pressures in the soil when the radial distance was less than 3 d, and the excess pore water pressures induced by the drilling stage were all less than 55 kPa when the radial distance reached 4–6 d. The drilling process also induced some lateral soil pressure increases in the soil within a radial distance of 3 d, while the measured maximum lateral soil pressure increases were smaller than 10.9 kPa when the radial distance increased to 4 d. On the whole, the excess pore water pressures and lateral soil pressure increases induced by the installation of PGP pile were much smaller than that induced by the installation of driven PHC pile. Moreover, the horizontal soil displacements, excess pore water pressures and lateral soil pressure increases induced by the installation of PGP pile all recovered rapidly after the installation of pile, as the cemented soil in the pile hole was in liquid state after the drilling and grouting stage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of field tests performed to investigate the behavior of pre-bored grouted planted nodular (PGPN) pile embedded in deep clayey soil. The test piles were all instrumented to measure the shaft and tip resistance and to determine the load transfer along the pile shaft. The test results show that the displacement necessary to fully mobilize the shaft resistance of PGPN pile is in the range of 1.83–3.32% D (D is pile diameter), and that the ultimate skin frictions of grout–soil interface of different soil layers are larger than the conventional proposed ultimate skin frictions for non-displacement piles. Furthermore, the pile tip resistance accounts for about 16% of the total applied pile head load corresponding to a pile head displacement of 0.1 D, and the pile tip resistance continues to increase after tip displacement reaches 5% of pile tip diameter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pre-bored grouted planted (PGP) pile shaft consists of a core PHC pile and the surrounding cemented soil column. The shaft capacity of PGP pile is controlled by the PHC pile–cemented soil–soil interface. In this paper, the effect of curing time on the frictional capacity of smooth concrete pipe pile–cemented soil interface was investigated through pile–soil interface shear tests. The test results show that the peak skin friction of pipe pile–cemented soil interface increased with the curing time. Nevertheless, the normalized peak skin friction (peak skin friction/cemented soil strength) of interface decreased with the curing time. The thickness of the cemented soil layer had a large effect on the residual skin friction of pipe pile–cemented soil interface. The scale effect also existed in the smooth concrete pipe pile–cemented soil interface shear tests, as the stiffness and shear strength of interface would decrease with the pipe pile diameter, which would eventually induce the decrease of radial confining pressure of the interface. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The distribution of temperature in sand soils was measured through laboratory tests, and the temperature influence on friction resistances at the concrete-soil interface was analyzed. Based on the results of laboratory tests, the finite element model was established using the sequential thermal coupling method. The influences of temperature on the bearing characteristics of energy pile were analyzed. The analysis results show that the cyclic temperature will cause additional displacement along pile depth. It is pointed out that if applied vertical loads at energy pile head exceed the value from which nonlinear settlements would be initiated, irrecoverable additional settlement will occur at pile head. Based on the analysis results, a simplified approach was proposed to estimate the zero point of additional displacement along pile shaft and the additional axial pile force. The comparison between the calculated results obtained by the proposed method and that of ABAQUS on single energy pile was given to verify the accuracy of the proposed method. It is shown that reasonable predictions can be obtained without expensive and time-consuming analyses by the proposed method in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The frictional capacity of pile–cemented soil interface is similar to the frictional capacity of pile–rock interface as the strength of cemented soil is close to the strength of soft rock. A series of pile–soil interface shear tests were carried out to study the frictional capacity of square pile–cemented soil interface. The shear test results show that the peak skin friction of square pile–cemented soil interface decreased with the increase in the side length of square pile; the failure mode of square pile–cemented soil interface was affected by the cemented soil thickness; the peak skin friction of square pile–cemented soil interface would increase with the roughness of square pile surface when the mean size of coated silica sand reached 0.94 mm, and the peak skin friction increased slightly with the density of coating sand. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of field tests performed to investigate the compressive bearing capacity of pre-bored grouted planted (PGP) pile with enlarged grout base focusing on its base bearing capacity. The bi-directional O-cell load test was conducted to evaluate the behavior of full scale PGP piles. The test results show that the pile head displacements needed to fully mobilize the shaft resistance were 5.9% and 6.4% D (D is pile diameter), respectively, of two test piles, owing to the large elastic shortening of pile shaft. Furthermore, the results demonstrated that the PHC nodular pile base and grout body at the enlarged base could act as a unit in the loading process, and the enlarged grout base could effectively promote the base bearing capacity of PGP pile through increasing the base area. The normalized base resistances (unit base resistance/average cone base resistance) of two test piles were 0.17 and 0.19, respectively, when the base displacement reached 5% Db (Db is pile base diameter). The permeation of grout into the silty sand layer under pile base increased the elastic modulus of silty sand, which could help to decrease pile head displacement under working load. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geomembranes (GMBs) of the landfill composite liners frequently contain long defects, which will form the dominant flow path in the composite liner. The significant differences between the geosynthetic clay liner (GCL) and the compacted clay liner (CCL) lead to distinct flow patterns in the defective composite liners. For GMB/CCL composite liners, the induced flow in the CCL is two-dimensional, thus the existing solution with the assumption of one-dimensional flow significantly underestimates the leakage rate with a maximum relative error of 87% when compared to the results of a 2D finite element model. A new solution for predicting the leakage rate through GMB/CCL composite liners with a long defect is proposed with a consideration of two-dimensional flow in the CCL, with relative errors of leakage rate less than 29% for the cases investigated. The proposed solution also shows a lower relative error for the wetted distance (6–23%) compared to the existing solution (49–77%) for GMB/CCL composite liner cases. The comparisons with numerical results show that the proposed analytical solution significantly reduces the underestimation of leakage rate through the defective GMB/CCL composite liner, thus can help to improve the composite liner design for landfills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The pre-bored grouted planted pile is a new type of composite pile foundation that consists of a precast concrete pile and the surrounding cemented soil. A series of shear tests were conducted in a specific shear test apparatus to investigate the shaft capacity of the different pile-soil interfaces. The test results show that the frictional capacity of the cemented soil-sand interface is controlled mainly by the sand properties, while the strength of the cemented soil slightly influences the interface properties by affecting the normalized roughness coefficient Rn. The frictional capacity of the concrete-sand interface is similar to the frictional capacity of the cemented soil-sand interface, and the existence of mud cake layer virtually hampers the frictional properties of the interface. The maximum skin friction of the concrete-cemented soil interface increases approximately linearly with the increasing cemented soil strength, and the value of the maximum skin friction is much larger than that of the cemented soil-sand interface of identical cemented soil strength, which demonstrates the integrity of the pre-bored grouted planted pile in the load transfer process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A group of field tests and three-dimensional finite element simulation were used to investigate the behavior of the pre-bored grouting planted pile under compression and tension; moreover, a group of shear tests of the concrete-cemented soil interface was carried out to study the frictional capacity of the pile-cemented soil interface. The load-displacement response, shaft resistance and mobilized base load were discussed based on the measured and computed results. The measured and computed results show that the frictional capacity of the cemented soil-soil interface is better than the frictional capacity of the concrete-soil interface. The frictional capacity of the concrete-cemented soil interface is mainly controlled by the properties of the cemented soil, and the ultimate skin friction of the concrete-cemented soil interface is much larger than that of the cemented soil-soil interface. The frictional capacity of the soil layer close to the enlarged base is also promoted because of the compaction of the enlarged base. The enlarged cemented soil base can promote the behavior of the pile foundation under tension, and the enlarged cemented soil base undertakes approximately 26.3% of the total uplift load under the ultimate bearing capacity in this research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geothermal energy piles (GEPs) are an innovation technology of vertical ground heat exchangers (GHXs) which can be used for the heating and cooling of building combined with ground source heat pumps. The main barriers to adoption are the inconvenient installation and a lack of the knowledge regarding the potential effect of temperature changes on pile foundations compared to traditional GHXs. The installation process can be facilitated by using pre-bored grouted planted (PGP) GEPs, which simplify the installation of heat exchange pipes and hence reduce the installation time. It is desirable to investigate the thermo-mechanical responses of this GEP for understanding the potential effects of the temperature changes. A PGP GEP was installed in a building during construction that incorporated two heating tests with different conditions (a short-term Test 1 without building load, and a long-term Test 2 with strong structural restraints and building load) to investigate the behavior of the PGP GEP. A fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensor system was used to evaluate temperature and strain behaviors of the test pile and two adjacent boreholes. The results show that the nonuniform spatio-temporal response of temperature induced the nonuniform thermal-induced stress along the pile depth. The end-restraints had significant effects on the thermo-mechanical response over the full pile. A comparison between the PGP GEP and other types of GEPs were conducted, and the similarities and differences between them were discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A static drill rooted nodular pile is a new type of composite pile foundation with high bearing capacity, and mud emissions can be largely reduced using the static drill rooted method. This report presents a model test on the behavior of this composite pile in a test box. The load-displacement response, axial force, skin friction, and mobilized base load are discussed in the report; in particular, the force in the cemented soil was investigated based on the measured data. Moreover, the finite element software ABAQUS was used to help investigate this behavior more thoroughly. It was determined that the function of the cemented soil around the pile shaft was different from that at the enlarged pile base; the stress in the cemented soil around the shaft increased suddenly when nearing the pile base; the ultimate skin friction obtained in the model test was larger than that estimated in the field test; and the relative displacement between the precast nodular pile and the cemented soil could be ignored during the loading process, which corresponded to the result of the field test and demonstrated that the nodular pile and cemented soil act as one entity during the loading process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]