Interaction mechanism of the anti-slide pile and sliding mass based on the soil arching effect

Abstract

Anti-slide pile has been one of the most used preventive measures for the landslide treatment in the recent years. The pile spacing has a significant impact on the arching effect which develops due to the relative compressibility of soil relative to the anti-slide piles. To reveal the interaction mechanism of pile and soil, the soil stress behind the anti-slide piles was studied based on the stress analysis of a semi-infinite plate. The influencing factors, such as time, pile spacing, and pile number were considered for the soil arching effect determination. A new method for determining the maximum pile spacing was presented, based on the Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion and the ultimate equilibrium method. The stress nephogram behind the anti-slide piles was obtained, and different distributions of soil arches, including the hyperbolic arch, extended shoulder arch, inverted bell arch, and circular arch were observed to be influenced by both the pile width and spacing. For the same pile width, the additional stress of soil decreases with the increase in the pile spacing. However, for the same pile spacing, a less apparent soil arching effect was observed when the pile width was smaller. This work can provide a simple solution for determining the soil stress and maximum pile spacing for the anti-slide pile design.