Borehole Group Effect during Pile Foundation Construction in Soft Soil Areas
Publication: International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 23, Issue 8
Abstract
Existing projects indicate that a large number of pile boreholes formed via cement fly ash gravel (CFG) pile construction in soft soil could produce a borehole group effect in the absence of timely backfilling. The borehole group effect could cause ground settlement and threaten the safety of adjacent buildings, tunnels, and pipelines. However, the mechanism of the borehole group effect, causing serious deformation in surrounding soil, has seldom been studied, and there exists no simple simulation method to predict the borehole group effect. In this study, a case involving CFG pile boreholes in a soft soil area causing a significant settlement of surrounding buildings was introduced. Based on this case, a centrifuge test was designed to simulate the influence of a single borehole and multiple boreholes on the surrounding soft soil. The mechanism of the borehole group effect was investigated via centrifuge tests and the finite-element method. In the case of a single borehole, a horizontal circumferential stress arch and vertical stress transfer arch were formed in the soil, which effectively limited the shrinking deformation of the borehole wall. In the case of a large number of boreholes with a small spacing, the horizontal and vertical stress arches around the boreholes affected and weakened each other. As a result, the shrinking deformation of the borehole group was greater than that of the single borehole. In other words, the borehole group effect was found to cause serious deformation in the surrounding soil. To overcome the difficulty in the simulation of a large number of pile boreholes in engineering, the borehole-type conversion and multihole merging method was proposed. The simulation results indicated that the simplified method was reasonable.
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Acknowledgments
This research was funded by the Research and Development Program of China Construction Second Engineering Bureau LTD. (91110000100024296D200003), the Research and Development Program of China State Construction Engineering Corporation LTD. (CSCEC-2021-Z-25), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51508382). The authors acknowledge the financial support provided.
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Published In
International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 23 • Issue 8 • August 2023
Copyright
© 2023 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Sep 18, 2022
Accepted: Jan 22, 2023
Published online: Jun 13, 2023
Published in print: Aug 1, 2023
Discussion open until: Nov 13, 2023
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