Serviceability analysis of piled foundations supporting tall structures

Pile foundations supporting tall structures, such as wind turbines, chimneys, silos, elevated water tanks or bridge piers, are subjected during their life span to remarkably eccentric loads. These may lead to significant rotations which, however, cannot exceed the limiting values corresponding to the safe operation of the structure. A physically motivated mathematical framework aimed at the prediction of the serviceability performance of such kind of structures is herein presented and discussed. Piles are idealized as uniaxial nonlinear elements characterized by two yielding loads, one in compression and one in uplift, while pile-to-pile interaction effects are modeled by means of superposition, through an approximate solution. The axial load–moment capacity of the pile group is preliminary determined from a recent closed form, exact solution based on upper and lower bound theorems, allowing the analysis to be performed under load control. The model is capable of accounting for the dependence of the moment–rotation response from the dead load of the structure and the ‘coupling effect’ between generalized loads and displacements. The prediction performance of the proposed calculation method is validated against both numerical and experimental benchmarks. Finally, a parametric study allowed to assess the importance of pile-to-pile interaction on the foundation response under eccentric loads.

Replacing the Piled Foundations of the Houphouët-Boigny Bridge in Abidjan Cote d’Ivoire

Due to historical ground movement, increased traffic levels, and general degradation, this important road and rail bridge which provides an essential link between the interior of the country and the Port of Abidjan, required significant repair and reinforcement. This included strengthening the pre-stressed concrete box girders and replacement of the piled foundations. Replacement piles had to be adjacent to, and no longer than, the existing piles to not compromise the stability of the operational bridge during the works. The underlying geology, however, meant that the pile loads had to be predominantly transferred into the ground through end bearing. Rather than installing a greater number of piles or larger diameter piles, innovative thinking changed the usual mind-set of designing the piles to the prevailing ground conditions, to designing the ground conditions to suit the piles. Jet grouted columns were installed beneath the toes of the new piles to increase the bearing capacity of the ground. This significantly contributed to the sustainability of the project and reduced carbon emissions through saving concrete, steel, plus transportation and disposal of spoil.

Results of an Instrumented Static Loading Test and Its Application to Design Compilation of an International Survey

Results of a static loading test were used together with soil exploration records in a survey comprising analysis of the test records and estimating settlement of piled foundation to support a pipe rack. The test pile was a strain-gage instrumented, 400-mm diameter, precast, prestressed concrete pile driven into a clay and silt deposit to 25 m embedment. Two main issues were expected to be addressed by the survey participants: First, realization that the strain records were affected by presence of residual force in the pile and, second, calculation of the settlement of the piled foundation expected from the foundation load. A total of 52 submissions were received from 20 different countries. Only 12 of the submissions realized the presence of residual force. Most submissions reported a calculated settlement of the piled foundations ranging from 10 mm through 50 mm; however, 11 reported values between 60 and 200 mm. Surprisingly, only 20 submissions reported ground surface settlement close to the 200-mm value resulting from text-book analysis based on the available information. The subsequent construction of the piled foundations coincided with placing a fill across the site and lowering of the groundwater table, thus, causing a general subsidence.

Numerical analysis of the influence of block geometry on the behavior of piled foundations

abstract: In recent years, engineering has significantly increased the use of numerical modeling, mainly applied in studies of solutions and analysis of the behavior of the soil - structure and foundation element interaction. In this sense, this paper analyzes the behavior of blocks foundations made up of one, two, three and four piles with 25 cm in diameter (d) and 5 m in length (L) and with unusual spacing between the piles, equal to 5d in a three-dimensional finite element numerical model (MEF-3D). The results of the numerical analyzes demonstrated an average contribution of 36% due to the block-to-ground contact in relation to the total capacity of the system. The geometry of the block influences the response in terms of load capacity and stiffness of the foundation element. These results demonstrate an opportunity to reevaluate traditional calculation requirements, with the aim of rationalizing the design of foundations, thus improving the safety of the structural system.