Engineering Character of a New-Style Pretensioned Spun Concrete Nodular Pile

As one of the primary pile styles in soft soil, the pretensioned spun concrete piles are applied widely in many fields, such as building engineering, traffic engineering, port engineering, and hydraulic engineering. However, there are many limitations in technology, such as its lower shaft resistance, lower resistance to bending and shearing, and poor linking manner and durability of connection between pile sections. A new-style pretensioned spun concrete nodular pile is introduced in this paper. The main construction technology, mechanical bonding manner and bearing character are improved aiming on the shortcoming of the traditional pretensioned spun concrete pile. Through the compressive and tensile static loading test, the bearing capacity of the new-style pretensioned spun concrete nodular pile is much higher than that of the ordinary one by at least 26%. Especially, its ultimate uplift resistance can be increased enormously, which the engineer is quite concerned about. Finally, the bearing mechanism and how the new nodular pile improve the skin friction are developed. So, the new-style pretensioned spun concrete nodular piles have many merits compared to the traditional one, which is helpful to its spread and application in soft soil.