Influence of lowering groundwater level on the behavior of pile in soft soil

Abstract

The article presents the results of numerical analysis of the development of negative skin friction forces of a single pile by lowering the level of the groundwater ta-ble in soft clay soils. The analysis is conducted with a three-dimensional model (3D) us-ing the ABAQUS software package. Results from the present work are found to be in congruent with the available published results. Moreover, the influence of lowering of the groundwater table in distribution of negative skin friction and axial forces on the pile as well as the maximum relative displacement between the soil and pile at various stages has been observed. The compression of the pile material is also taken into con-sideration in the study. Based on the results of the current numerical analysis, an equa-tion has been proposed for estimating the additional load on the pile, which is caused by negative frictional forces.