Effect of Vertical Load on the Lateral Behavior of Group of Piles

Civil Engineering

On the response of piles for combined vertical and lateral loads in the laboratory and field test data are limited. The current practice for design of piles is to consider the vertical and lateral loads independent of each other. This paper presents the effect of vertical load on the behaviour of a group of piles under lateral load through laboratory experiments on aluminium pipe piles with outer diameter of 25 mm and internal diameter of 19mm. Pile was driven in poorly graded sand with 60% relative density. Influence of constant magnitude of vertical load (in range of 20%, 40%, 60%, 80% and 100% of Experimental Ultimate Vertical Load) on the lateral response of group of piles for slenderness ratio of 10 and 15 was studied. Pile was instrumented with dial gauges to measure deflection at top of group of piles. The test results have shown a significant increase in the load resisting capacity under vertical loads on the lateral response of group of piles due to increasing length of piles from 250 mm to 375 mm in sandy soil. The test results are compared with the results from the literature and are found to be in favourable agreement. This research of hollow pile foundation will be the most efficient pile foundation technique in terms of economy, stability, construction methods and post settlement problems to transfer very heavy dynamic loads safely to greater depths.

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