PERFORMANCE OF LATERALLY LOADED MODEL FINNED PILES IN CLAY SOIL

Abstract

Finned piles are a novel pilling technique which is used as a foundation for many structures such as: transmission towers, bridge abutments, ocean engineering structures, marine dolphins, dock-fendering systems and moorings that subjected predominantly to both laterally loads beside the vertical loads.This paper presents a series of experimental tests that were conducted to lateral loaded piles with/without fins in clay. Piles with different types were fitted with different fins geometry and numbers. The results of this study indicated that the pile lateral capacity increased and the horizontal deformation of pile decreased at thesame load level after mounting fins is compared to regular normal pile without fins. It has been found that the optimum geometry of adopted fins is found to be its length equals to (0.4) of the embedded pile length and width equals to the pile diameter. The existence of such fins considerably increased the ultimate lateral capacity by as much as (54% and 35%) of it is initial value for short and long piles respectively.

Keywords

• soft clay
• finned piles
• model tests
• laterally loaded