Uplift Bearing Capacity of Cone-Cylinder Foundation for Transmission Line in Frozen Soil Regions, Using Reduced-Scale Model Tests and Numerical Simulations

Abstract

In order to analyze the uplift bearing capacity of cone-cylinder foundation for transmission line in frozen soil regions, a series of reduced-scale modeling tests and numerical simulations are carried out. First, three reduced-scale cone-cylinder foundations with the same sizes, that are five times smaller than the prototype, are made and then loaded under uplift load at −5 °C, −10 °C, and −15 °C, respectively. On this basis, the foundations of nine sizes are modeled and loaded by numerical simulation. The impact of three dimension factors, including the ratio of depth to bottom width ( λ = h t / D t ), the top diameter of the cone-cylinder (d), and the bottom diameter of the cone-cylinder (D), on the uplift bearing capacity of foundations have been investigated. The results reveal that, for cone-cylinder foundation, the uplift bearing capacity is obviously affected by the freezing temperatures and the foundation sizes. The capacity is negatively correlated with the former. Whereas the order of correlation with the latter is as follows: λ, D, and d based on the comprehensive results of range and variance analysis, but none of them are the significant factors, according to the F-test. Furthermore, three failure mechanisms of frozen soil are distinguished and named T-mode, V-mode, and U-mode, respectively. Based on the above results, the bearing mechanism of cone-cylinder foundation in frozen soil is elaborated in detail.