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The scale effect on the failure mechanism and penetration resistance of caisson piling in clay

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Abstract

The influence of scale effect could be significant on the behavior of ring stiffened caisson penetrating into clay, which brings uncertainty when predicting the failure mechanism and penetration resistance. This paper presents numerical modeling results which examine the scale effect on the behavior of caisson during piling into clay, which can consider the plug effect of caisson installation that has significant effect on the behavior of caisson especially for the case with large L/D. Large deformation finite element analyses are employed in this study. Two numerical models are generated and validated with laboratory results from centrifuge tests. Numerical results demonstrate significant scale effect on the characteristics of caisson penetrating in clay, which is mainly influenced by the normalized soil strength. Two formulas, with considering scale effect, are proposed to predict the behavior of stiffened caisson during installation, which can provide engineering guidance for the design of installation for ring stiffened caissons.

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Abbreviations

A :

Inner area, A = π(D—2t)2/4

D :

Diameter of caisson

w :

Distance of bottom stiffener base from skirt tip

s :

(Edge to edge) spacing between two stiffeners

b :

Width of stiffener

h :

Height if stiffener

t :

Thickness of skirt wall

d :

Penetration depth of skirt tip

s u :

Undrained shear strength of clay

γ′:

Effective unit weight of clay

ν :

Poisson’s ratio

E :

Young's modulus

α :

Interface roughness

F :

Penetration resistance

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42176224), the Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (2021A1515010828), Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Modern Civil Engineering Technology (2021B1212040003).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. State Key Laboratory of Subtropical Building Science, South China Institute of Geotechnical Engineering, South China University of Technology, 381 Wushan Road, Guangzhou, 510640, China

    Mi Zhou, Yuwei Han & Xiaobin Ding

  2. Guangzhou Airport Construction & Investment Group Co., Ltd, Guangzhou, China

    Yuwei Han

  3. School of Civil and Mechanical Engineering, Curtin University, Kent Street, Bentley, 6102, Australia

    Xihong Zhang

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  1. Mi Zhou
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  2. Yuwei Han
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Correspondence to Xiaobin Ding.

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Zhou, M., Han, Y., Zhang, X. et al. The scale effect on the failure mechanism and penetration resistance of caisson piling in clay. Acta Geotech. 17, 4447–4460 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11440-022-01490-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11440-022-01490-z

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