Model of nonlinear behavior applied to prediction of settlement in deep foundations

Abstract

Prediction of pile settlement is considered as a highly complex task by geotechnical engineering researchers and professionals, owing to the diversity of prediction methods and also to the difficulty to use predictive models that represent the nonlinear behavior of the soil. In this sense, this work assesses two methods for nonlinear prediction of the settlement of a 23-m long, 31-cm diameter instrumented root pile tested via slow maintained load (SML) test. The local subsoil is composed of colluvional silty-sandy, lateritic clay with a collapsible surface layer (6.5 m), followed by silty clayey sandy soil (diabase residue) down to 20 m. The results showed that the models of nonlinear behavior were in appropriate agreement with the experimentally obtained results. It was also noted that, for small displacements of the top (5.1 mm), the tip load increased continuously from its reaction to the final stage of the test.

Keywords

• settlement
• root pile
• load test
• nonlinear model