Study and Application on Computational Methods for Ultimate Bearing Capacity of Single Pile

Abstract

It is difficult and important to accurately calculate single pile ultimate bearing capacity during pile foundation design. Typical computational methods on single pile ultimate bearing capacity are contrastively analyzed in this paper. Contact element method on single pile ultimate bearing capacity is relatively accurate and economical, but it isn’t used in practical projects until now because its computational process is complicated. 343 different single pile ultimate bearing capacities are calculated with the contact element method in order to study a simple computational formula based on the contact element method. All data calculated are analyzed with a linear recursive multi-analysis program which is programmed with Fortran90. A simple computational formula on the contact element method is presented based on the analysis results. The simple computational formula, the experiential formula in the code, the contact element method and the static load experiment method are respectively used to calculate single pile ultimate bearing capacity in two practical projects in order to test the simple computational formula. The results show that the simple computational formula is relatively accurate. Some advice is presented based on the analysis results.