Numerical Assessment of Pile Capacity in Loose Sand in North-Eastern Egypt

At some coastal areas in Egypt, especially Port Said and Damietta, there are layers of loose to medium silty sand with traces of seashells fragments at the surface, overlying a very deep soft clay layer. The construction of shallow foundations over such soil formation is difficult and in some cases is not possible due to the high soil compressibility, large settlements, low bearing capacity, and near surface groundwater. In such case, small diameter piles could be used especially under low rise structures to transmit the structure loads with much lower settlements. A finite element-based numerical analysis using ADINA software (Version 9.4.2) ‎[4] is used to analyze and study the behavior of piles in such soil formations. Results indicated that both pile diameter and embedded length in loose sand have significant effect on the pile capacity and settlement on the other hand pile embedded length in soft clay layer has no effect on either pile capacity or pile settlement. One of the key findings of this study is that, most of the load carried by the pile transmitted to soil by skin friction so that, the choice of using pile foundation in such soil formations is practical to some extent.