Lateral Pile Resistance, Wall Displacement, and Induced Reinforcement Force for Laterally Loaded Single Piles Near Mechanically Stabilized Earth Walls
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 148, Issue 3
Abstract
A full-scale mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) wall was constructed with inextensible reinforcements, and 23 lateral load tests were conducted on single piles spaced at distances of about 2 to 5 pile diameters () from the back face of the wall to the center of the pile. Tests were performed on pipe, square, and H-piles. Lateral resistance decreased significantly when piles were located closer than about from the wall. -multipliers were developed to account for the reduction in lateral soil resistance for piles near the wall and were approximately 1 for piles located further than about from the wall but decreased linearly for smaller distances. They provided a reasonable means for estimating reduced lateral resistance and were not significantly affected by differences in reinforcement length, reinforcing type, or pile shape. Measured tensile force in the reinforcements tended to reach a peak near the pile rather than at the wall face. Equations are developed to predict maximum tensile force in the reinforcements. Tensile force increased with pile head load and decreased with increased transverse distance from the load point.
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Data Availability Statement
Some or all data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request. Results include load-deflection spreadsheets and tensile force spreadsheets.
Acknowledgments
This study was funded through FHWA Transportation Pooled Fund TPF–5(272) “Evaluation of Lateral Pile Resistance Near MSE Walls at a Dedicated Wall Site” and was supported by Departments of Transportation of Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, New York, Oregon, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin. The Utah department served as the lead agency with Jason Richins as the project manager. This support is gratefully acknowledged; however, the opinions, conclusions and recommendations contained herein do not necessarily represent those of the sponsoring organizations. We are also grateful to Atlas Tube, Inc. and Spartan Steel for donating the piles; Desert Deep Foundations, Inc. for providing pile-driving services at cost; Geneva Rock, Inc. for providing site grading services and the test site location; and the Reinforced Earth Company and SSL, LLC for donating the steel strip and welded-wire wall systems, respectively.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 148 • Issue 3 • March 2022
Copyright
© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Sep 3, 2018
Accepted: Oct 21, 2021
Published online: Dec 28, 2021
Published in print: Mar 1, 2022
Discussion open until: May 28, 2022
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