Enhancement of lateral load carrying capacity of a pile incorporating fins – a parametric study

Abstract

Infra-structure plays a vital role in the development of the country. Such growth directly or indirectly forces the engineers to construct the structures like high rise buildings, bridges, underground utilities, dams, etc. effectively focussing the sustainability and effective utilization of time and money. To design such structures, it is much needed to have an effective plan of design and selection of suitable techniques to execute. The load from the super structure will be transferred through the structural element called foundation. The load from the superstructure is high or the subsoil having a low bearing capacity, pile foundation is generally recommended. During the process of execution, there will be a chance of occurrence of defects in the pile such as necking or bulging. The defect in the pile may affect the load transferring mechanism and load carrying capacity. Occurrence of defects in the cast-in-situ concrete pile can be accessed through non-destructive field testing. As there are no established guidelines available to consider such defective piles, engineers go for construction of new piles instead of taking risk. From the extensive literature review, it was observed that the top onethird portion of the pile has more impact on reduction in capacity due to the existence of defects. This research focused to study the behaviour of the laterally loaded defective (necking) pile incorporating the fins around the pile using the finite element analysis software PLAXIS 3D V20 Connect Edition. The results confirm the enhancement of lateral load carrying capacity of defective pile encased with fins up to the top one-third portion. The outcome of this study helps the engineers to utilize the defective pile with the recommended incorporation of pile casing with fins.