Numerical Study of the Arching Phenomenon of Bored Piles in Sand

Several bored pile field-testing observations showed the arching phenomena and its effect on side shear resistance. Finite elements numerical model is developed in this paper to study the arching phenomena of bored pile and the effect on the overall compression capacity of single board piles. The numerical models developed apply a hardening/softening model (multi-surface) constitutive model to account for sandy soil non-linear behavior. 2D-axisymmetric finite elements full pile model has been developed and calibrated using several field-testing available in the literature. The numerical study has been conducted to investigate the effect of arching close to the single pile shaft on pile bearing capacity considering three major influence factors: pile length, pile diameter, and sand relative density. The numerical analyses conducted show the important of the arching phenomenon on the overall behavior of piles and on the prediction of bored piles bearing capacity.