Postgrouted helical piles behavior through physical modeling by FCV

Abstract

ABSTRACTPiling procedure may disturb the surrounding soil, due to the installation particularly for cast-in-place piles. It causes a reduction in the soil strength parameters and, consequently, pile capacity. To overcome shortcomings and also for improving piles’ capacity, postgrouting as a compensation method is recognized and more developed in recent years. Helical piles, those are used widely in marine and land projects, although, are driven by torque implementation, but soil disturbance is noticed, where number of the helices become up to 3 and more. In this paper, an experimental study program is performed by frustum-confined vessel (FCV) to investigate bearing capacity of model helical piles and also postgrouted cases’ performance. FCV has been used because of its linear distribution of vertical and horizontal stresses from zero at top to maximum at bottom which simulates real field stress conditions. Through experimental study, small-scale helical model piles were made of 4-mm-thick steel plate and have been used with a length of 750 mm. The shaft and helix diameters of model piles have been 32 and 89 mm, respectively. So, the helix-to-shaft ratio (wing ratio) was about 2.8. The helical model piles installed in fine-grained sand as a surrounding soil and then axial loading tests before and after grouting were performed to achieve ultimate pile capacity. Results indicated postgrouting can improve both ratios of toe and frictional soil–pile interactions including upgrading β and Nt factors. In addition, the post grouting phenomena can change the pile geometry due to treated soil bond, resulting better functioning. Therefore, it is a proper method to improve helical piles performance and compensate installation effects in capacity mobilization.