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Design of single piles under lateral loads in clay—contribution of the pre-bored PMT test

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Abstract

The P-Y curves-based methods are nowadays powerful tools of design of laterally loaded piles. Semi-empirical methods based on correlation of the P-Y curves parameters with the in situ tests data are increasingly gaining interest among the geotechnical engineers. The aim of this paper is to present a new method of construction of the P-Y curves for a single pile embedded in a clayey soil, based on the pre-bored pressuremeter test (PBPMT) data. Detailed interpretation of full-scale lateral loading tests on 10 instrumented piles driven into 2 saturated clays served as a framework to develop this method. It was shown that the lateral reaction modulus and the lateral soil resistance may be formulated respectively as power and linear functions of the lateral pile/soil stiffness ratio. The predictive capability of the proposed method was demonstrated through a validation process by comparing the predicted load–deflection curves to the ones obtained from a database of full-scale piles. It was found the proposed method slightly overpredicts the pile deflections, which is in the safe side.

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Acknowledgements

The study reported herein was supported by the Algerian ministry of higher education and research MESRS within the scope of the project MISOPISS (Modélisation de l’Interaction Sol-Pieu et Sol-Soutènement) under the code J0901/04/02/2004. The author is grateful to Jacques Roudier, General Manager of the LCPC Laboratory for authorizing him to access to the experimental data of full-scale lateral loading tests of piles carried out by the LCPC.

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  1. Faculty of Technology, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Blida, P. O. Box: 270 R.P. Blida, 09000, Blida, Algeria

    Bouafia Ali

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Correspondence to Bouafia Ali.

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Ali, B. Design of single piles under lateral loads in clay—contribution of the pre-bored PMT test. Arab J Geosci 16, 564 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12517-023-11681-x

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