Reply to the discussion by P. Adebar on "An evaluation of pile cap design methods in accordance with the Canadian design standard"

Abstract

Cavers and Fenton 1129 The authors appreciate the considerable interest the discussor has shown in their research. The authors agree that research into pile cap design was needed and timely. The discussor raises a number of interesting criticisms of the authors’ work that will hopefully fuel future experimentation, analysis, and debate and lead to a clearer understanding of the entire pile cap design issue. Both the authors and the discussor are aware that interpretation of experimental results is an extremely complex process, fraught with uncertainties and assumptions, and it is not at all unusual for two researchers to reach somewhat differing conclusions. This is not necessarily a negative thing. In fact, such discrepancies often pave the way to an overall better understanding by the community at large. In this spirit, the authors present the following responses to the various criticisms raised by the discussor. The discussor contends that the pile caps tested by Adebar et al. (1990) and Blevot and Fremy (1967) should not have been excluded from the paper. As all researchers know, one of the tasks with any study attempting to compare experimental results is to avoid comparing “apples with oranges”. To this end, it was clearly stated in the authors’ work that the study was restricted to square four-pile caps. The pile caps tested by Adebar et al. (1990) did not meet these criteria. Similarly, the pile caps tested by Blevot and Fremy (1967) were examined but were excluded from the study because they were tapered pile caps. The reasons for these decisions were outlined in the paper and the authors stated in their conclusions that non-square pile caps required further study. The discussor states “Analysis indicates that in all the pile caps selected by Cavers and Fenton, failure was related to yielding of the longitudinal reinforcement.” He further states that “none of the failures were actually true shear failures” and that the authors “compared predictions for specific failure modes with the measured capacities of all specimens that may have failed in that mode according to test observations, and ignored the fact that the complete design method predicts another failure mode is much more critical.” The