Finite element analysis of couple effect of soil displacement and axial load on single inclined pile

Abstract

The couple effect of soil displacement and axial load on the single inclined pile in cases of surcharge load and uniform soil movement is discussed in detail with the methods of full-scale field tests and finite element method. Parametric analyses including the degree of inclination and the distance between soil and pile are carried out herein. When the displacement of soil on the left side and right side of a pile is identical, deformation of a vertical pile and an inclined pile is highly close in both cases of surcharge load and uniform soil movement. When the couple effect of soil displacement and axial load occurs, settlement of an inclined pile is greater than that of a vertical pile under the same axial load, and bearing capacity of an inclined pile is smaller than that of a vertical pile. This is quite different from the case when the inclined pile is not affected by soil displacement. For inclined piles, P-Δ effect of axial load would lead to a large increase in bending moment, however, for the vertical pile, P-Δ effect of axial load can be neglected. Although the direction of inclination of piles is reverse, deformation of piles caused by uniform soil movement is totally the same. For the inclined piles discussed herein, bending moment (−8 m to −17 m under the ground) relies heavily on uniform soil movement and does not change during the process of applying axial load. When the thickness of soil is less than the pile length, the greater the thickness of soil, the larger the bending moment at lower part of the inclined pile. When the thickness of soil is larger than the pile length, bending moment at lower part of the inclined pile is zero.