Abstract
This paper presents a detailed analysis of the effect of oil contamination on the geotechnical behaviour of bridge pile foundations, focusing on the influence of soil type, oil-contamination intensity and oil-contamination depth. A thorough parametric study of these dominant parameters was carried out through numerical analyses that were performed using Flac3D software. The analyses were designed using three types of soils: poorly graded sand (SP), silty sand (SM) and kaolinite clay. Oil contamination degrades the geotechnical behaviour of bridge pile foundations. Soil type has a clear effect on the internal forces induced in the piles, with maximum normal forces occurring in SP, the maximum bending moment in kaolinite clay and maximum shear forces in SM. The variation of oil-contamination intensity in the soil changes the induced internal forces in the piles by ratios increasing to 40, 34 and 20% of the bending moment, the shear forces and the normal forces, respectively. However, the alterations in the displacements of the soil and the piles are more significant, with ratios up to 150%. In contrast, the oil-contamination depth has a limited effect on the internal force of the pile (up to 4%) but has a considerable effect on the displacement of the foundation.
Highlights
Oil is currently the most significant source of energy in the world, and as such, it has crucial importance on the development of the world economy in terms of satisfying the accelerating demands for energy, in the industrial and transportation sectors
This paper presents a detailed analysis of the effect of oil contamination on the geotechnical behaviour of bridge pile foundations, focusing on the influence of soil type, oil-contamination intensity and oil-contamination depth
Strength properties Sandy, bentonite-rich and pure kaolin soils tend to display a reduction in the angle of friction, alongside a small increase in cohesion, with the addition of oil (Khamehchiyan et al, 2007; Khosravi et al, 2013; Mohammadi et al, 2018), whereas clayey and silty soils display an increase in the angle of friction and a reduction in cohesion (Kermani and Ebadi, 2012; Khamehchiyan et al, 2007)
Summary
Oil is currently the most significant source of energy in the world, and as such, it has crucial importance on the development of the world economy in terms of satisfying the accelerating demands for energy, in the industrial and transportation sectors. Strength properties Sandy, bentonite-rich and pure kaolin soils tend to display a reduction in the angle of friction, alongside a small increase in cohesion, with the addition of oil (Khamehchiyan et al, 2007; Khosravi et al, 2013; Mohammadi et al, 2018), whereas clayey and silty soils display an increase in the angle of friction and a reduction in cohesion (Kermani and Ebadi, 2012; Khamehchiyan et al, 2007) These combined effects result in a reduction in peak shear strength for clayey and sandy soils (Puri, 2000) and basaltic residual soils (Rahman et al, 2010). The ultimate bearing capacity of piles buried in oil-contaminated silty sand is reduced by approximately 30% (Hafshejani and Hajiannia, 2016) This brief literature review indicates the variability of reported results in the literature, showing the complexity of this subject. 0·4 0·9232 5 146 8·1 0 rs, Eos and ns, density, Young’s modulus and coefficient of Poisson’s ratio of the soil; Ko, earth pressure at rest; zs, percentage of critical damping; C, f and Y, cohesion, internal friction angle and dilatation angle of the soil
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