Determination of Vertical Bearing Capacity of Pile Foundation Systems in Tropical Soils with Uncertain and Highly Variable Properties
Publication: Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities
Volume 31, Issue 1
Abstract
This study presents an innovative procedure to derive the ultimate load capacity of a pile system by considering the natural (intrinsic) variability of a tropical soil. The tropical soil has high aluminum and iron content due to processes of lixiviation of the upper soil layers. As a consequence, this soil has a porous cemented structure, high void ratio, high permeability, and high variability of the geotechnical parameters in its depth. Soil layers are experimentally characterized via standard characterization, a triaxial test, standard penetration test, and flat dilatometer tests. Also, the load test of the standard groups (PG) and pile plus pile-cap (PC), which had self-drilling piles, were performed at real scale. Afterwards, simulations using a three-dimensional finite-element method (3D FEM) considering variations in soil parameters were performed for a hypothetical piles-plus-pile cap system under vertical loading using the random finite-element method. Mean parameters were verified through laboratory and field tests. Results from the load test simulations were compared with real-scale tests conducted in this study. The relative importance of variability of several geomechanical parameters was analyzed in terms of their effects on the contribution of the pile cap to the ultimate bearing capacity of the full system and found to be 18%; the minimum contribution is 2% of the total load. Finally, it is shown that reasonable savings in construction costs accompanied by a modest reduction in the safety factor () may occur when the variability of parameters is taken into account.
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Acknowledgments
The authors express their gratitude for the sponsorship to Colciencias, entity of Colombia, and the Tiempo de Volver program. Moreover, they express thanks to Brazilian sponsorship organizations, CNPq and CAPES, for the support related to this research and the other studies developed. The first author wants to express his gratitude to Los Andes University, in Colombia, for its technical and financial support in the study of deep foundations in the residual soils.
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Published In
Journal of Performance of Constructed Facilities
Volume 31 • Issue 1 • February 2017
Copyright
© 2016 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Aug 14, 2015
Accepted: Mar 21, 2016
Published online: Jul 1, 2016
Discussion open until: Dec 1, 2016
Published in print: Feb 1, 2017
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