Method for Calculating Vertical Compression Bearing Capacity of the Static Drill Rooted Nodular Pile

Abstract

The static drill rooted nodular (SDRN) pile is a new kind of composite pile foundation made by inserting a precast nodular pile into the cemented soil. Based on the tests and analysis on the mechanism characteristics of these two kinds of interfaces, which are between the pile and cemented soil, and between the cemented soil and soil, this paper proposes a calculation method for the ultimate vertical bearing capability of the SDRN pile considering two failure modes. When the precast pile and surrounding cemented soil fails as a whole, the diameter of the cemented soil pile is taken to calculate the ultimate shaft resistance, and the shaft resistance of the SDRN pile is about 1.05∼1.10 times that of the bored pile in the same soil layer. When the core precast pile fails in penetration mode, the diameter of the core pile is taken. The pile shaft resistance takes that of displacement piles in the same soil layer. The lower nodular pile shaft resistance should consider the squeezing effect of nodular joints. Besides, the improvement of pile tip resistance due to the expanded cemented soil should also be taken into consideration. The result is the smaller value calculated according to these two failure modes. The ultimate bearing capacity of a SDRN pile calculated by the theoretical method is not only compared with the field test result, but also the simulation result of a 2D model pile built by PLAXIS finite element software. In addition, the finite element simulation is also confirmed to be an effective way to investigate the mechanism characteristics of SDRN piles more thoroughly.

Keywords

• static drill rooted nodular pile
• failure mode
• shaft resistance
• tip resistance
• self-balance method
• PLAXIS