Effect of Excavation Disturbance on Clayey Soil Mechanical Properties and Pile Capacity
Publication: International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 22, Issue 7
Abstract
Excavation causes disturbance to the surrounding soil, affecting the soil’s mechanical properties. This study presents a case study to investigate the effect of excavation disturbance on soil properties and pile capacity via in situ tests. A series of multifunctional piezocone tests, multichannel analysis of surface wave tests, and electrical resistivity tomography tests were conducted at three sites of the Taihu tunnel region before and after excavation with different depths. The changes in soil mechanical properties and the pile capacity loss were evaluated using the test results. The results indicated that excavation disturbance decreased the cone tip resistance, sleeve friction, soil resistivity, shear wave velocity, and undrained shear strength. In contrast, the friction ratio and the effective friction angle were not affected. The average cone tip resistance of soils in the excavation disturbance zone was approximately 51%, 46%, and 62% of its initial value at Sites A, B, and C, respectively. The variation in soil properties was only observed within a limited depth below the excavation surface, which is defined as the excavation disturbance zone. The piezocone test successfully identified the depth of the excavation disturbance zone, and the disturbance zone height was approximately 0.42 times the excavation depth. In the disturbance zone, the cone tip resistance and the undrained shear strength of the soil decreased linearly from approximately 90%–0% with increasing depth. Because of excavation disturbance, the axial and lateral capacities of a pile beneath the Taihu tunnel were reduced by about 9% and 50%, respectively.
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Acknowledgments
This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 41972269), the Jiangsu Provincial Transportation Engineering Construction Bureau (CX-2019GC02), and the Graduate Student Scientific Research Innovation Program of Jiangsu Province (KYCX21_0121). The authors are grateful to Enago for the language editing and proofreading.
Notation
The following symbols are used in this paper:
- a
- constant to determine soil resistivity;
- D
- pile diameter;
- ei
- void ratio after incremental unloading;
- emin
- void ratio before unloading;
- emax
- void ratio at the end of the unloading;
- m
- constant to determine soil resistivity;
- N
- SPT blow count;
- Nc
- bearing capacity factor;
- Nkt
- cone factor corresponding to the corrected cone tip resistance;
- Nkc
- cone factor corresponding to cone tip resistance;
- n
- soil porosity;
- pa
- atmospheric pressure;
- pmax
- effective vertical stress before unloading;
- pi
- residual vertical effective stress after incremental unloading;
- pu
- ultimate resistance;
- qt1
- normalized cone tip resistance;
- R
- soil resistivity;
- Rfluid
- resistivity of pore fluid;
- u0
- static water pressure;
- y50
- pile deflection corresponding to half of the ultimate resistance;
- z
- depth;
- zr
- limit depth;
- γ′
- effective unit weight;
- ε50
- strain corresponding to half of the failure stress in unconfined compression test;
- σv0
- overburden stress;
- σv0
- ′effective overburden stress; and
- φ
- ′friction angle.
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Published In
International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 22 • Issue 7 • July 2022
Copyright
© 2022 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Oct 1, 2021
Accepted: Feb 12, 2022
Published online: May 6, 2022
Published in print: Jul 1, 2022
Discussion open until: Oct 6, 2022
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