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Numerical Evaluation of Pile Length, Lateral Bulging and Encasement Length: A Comparative Study on Ordinary and Encased Granular Piles

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Abstract

Granular piles, either ordinary or encased with geosynthetic materials are being extensively used as one of the ground improvement techniques, depending on the strength of the adjoining soil. The optimum granular pile (GP) length is still a matter of research, even though the approach is widely established in the literature. In the present study, a thorough and detailed parametric analysis has been carried out to ascertain the optimum length for ordinary and encased granular piles using a 2D axisymmetric finite element model. The soil behaviour has been modelled with the linearly elastic perfectly plastic Mohr–Coulomb failure criterion constitutive model. The parameters considered in this study are area replacement ratio, encasement stiffness, soil properties, infill material properties, and crust layer thickness. The findings revealed that the parameters with the greatest influence on the optimum length are the area replacement ratio, encasement stiffness, surrounding soil strength properties, and friction angle of the infill material. For encased granular piles, the optimum length was often found to be longer than ordinary granular piles. It was found that the optimum length for ordinary and encased GP ranges between 0.8–2.12 and 1–2.75 times of footing diameter (D), respectively. Through this study, an effort has also been made to investigate how the aforementioned parameters affect the radial bulging of the end-bearing GP. The upper section of 0.5–1.5D showed excessive bulging in each case. Additionally, the optimum encasement length was determined, and it was found that increasing the encasement length beyond 1.5D results in minimal improvement. Furthermore, a multiple regression analysis was employed to establish the correlation between the optimum length of GP and potential influencing factors.

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Data Availability

The authors affirm that the data supporting the findings of this study can be found within the article. Furthermore, upon a reasonable request, the corresponding author is willing to provide the raw data that underlie the findings of this study.

Abbreviations

GP:

Granular pile

OGP:

Ordinary granular pile

EGP:

Encased granular pile

H :

Soil bed thickness

L :

Granular pile length

L op :

Optimum granular pile length

L e :

Encasement length

L e,op :

Optimum encasement length

D :

Footing diameter

χ :

Normalized depth

χ :

L/D

λ :

Improvement factor

v:

Poisson’s ratio

ϒsat :

Saturated unit weight

k o :

Coefficient of earth pressure at rest

c s :

Soil cohesion

ϕ s/c :

Internal frictional angle soil/granular pile

Ψ s /c :

Dilation angle soil/granular pile

E s/c :

Soil/granular pile stiffness

a r :

Area replacement ratio

d c :

GP diameter

t g :

Granular bed thickness

J g :

Encasement stiffness

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  1. Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, Uttarakhand, 247667, India

    Shaid Yousuf & Narendra Kumar Samadhiya

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Shaid Yousuf performed the numerical modelling, analysed the data, and wrote the paper. N K Samadhiya reviewed and edited the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Yousuf, S., Samadhiya, N.K. Numerical Evaluation of Pile Length, Lateral Bulging and Encasement Length: A Comparative Study on Ordinary and Encased Granular Piles. Int. J. of Geosynth. and Ground Eng. 10, 48 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40891-024-00556-0

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