Relationships between shaft capacity of driven piles and CPT end resistance

Abstract

Potential relationships between the shaft capacity of a pile driven in clay and the cone penetration test (CPT) end resistance are investigated using results from recent field research on displacement piles. It is shown that a relatively good correlation between shaft capacity and cone end resistance may be achieved if other influential parameters such as interface friction angle, clay sensitivity and relative depth of the pile tip are taken into account. The proposed approach is seen to provide good predictions for a range of pile test results and is both compatible with, and an improvement on, existing CPT-based methods.