Excess Pore Water Pressure Induced by Installation of Precast Piles in Soft Clay
Publication: International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 21, Issue 9
Abstract
Soft marine deposits are widely distributed in the coastal region of China. The marine soft clays have high water content and high sensitivity, which shows high compressibility and low strength. The installation of precast piles for wind turbines over soft marine clay will generate high excess pore water pressure (EPWP) with very low dissipation rate, resulting in low bearing capacity and large postconstruction settlement, which will affect long-term stability. This study investigated the generation and dissipation of the EPWP correlated with the change in soil structure during the installation of pile foundations in a project of 100 MW wind-power generation in Lianyungang, Jiangsu, China. The results show that the marine soft clay soils feature strong natural structures based on the intrinsic compression concept. The EPWP decreases with increasing distance from the pile, whose influence reaches a distance of 6 m (about 10 times the pile side length). The structural strength of natural sedimentary clay has a remarkable impact on the generated EPWP. The dissipation rate of the EPWP is very slow in mucky clay with more than half the residual value after 30 days, which is mainly attributed to the sharp decline of consolidation coefficient induced by the disturbance of natural clay soils from pile driving. Moreover, hydraulic fracturing can well explain the dissipation characteristics of the EPWP in clay. This phenomenon is actually an ongoing process especially in marine soft clay soils with a strong cementation effect.
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Acknowledgments
This study is partially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 51978159), National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2015BAB07B06).
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International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 21 • Issue 9 • September 2021
Copyright
© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Aug 28, 2020
Accepted: Dec 1, 2020
Published online: Jun 17, 2021
Published in print: Sep 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Nov 17, 2021
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