International Journal of Civil, Structural and Concrete Engineering

Authors: Mahesh S M, Vanishree B

Abstract: When vertical piles are installed beneath buoyant structures such as dry docks, basements, and pumping stations they are required to resist uplift loads. Although the loads applied on piles are usually a combination of both vertical and lateral loads, very limited experimental research has been done on the response of pile groups subjected to combined loads. Due to pile–soil–pile interaction in pile groups, the response of a pile group may differ substantially from that of a single pile. This difference depends on soil state and pile spacing. This paper presents results of experiments designed to investigate pile interaction effects on the response of pile groups subjected to both axial and lateral loads. The combined load test results showed that the resistance, lateral displacement and efficiency at the head of the piles increased substantially for tests performed in the presence of axial loads, suggesting that the presence of axial loads on individual and groups of piles driven in loose sand is detrimental to their lateral capacity.