An approach for analysis of a single energy pile subjected to a horizontal load in sand

Abstract

Many studies on horizontally loaded energy piles have tended to ignore the impact of axial frictional resistance in the analysis processes or lacked experimental validation. The effect of axial frictional resistance may be considered by conveniently calculating the frictional resistance and revealing the mechanism of axial frictional resistance. Our proposed displacement analysis approach takes into account pile-sand axial friction during heating. Validation was carried out through a centrifuge test case. Subsequent parametric analyses explored the influence of pile diameter and Young's modulus on the lateral response of the pile. Comparative results between the centrifuge test and proposed approach underscored its effectiveness in capturing the impact of friction resistance on energy piles during heating. The parametric analyses show that the increase in pile diameter from 0.5 m to 0.7 m and Young's modulus from 10 GPa to 20 GPa led to a decrease in normalized pile top displacement by 50.68% and 28.33%, a decrease in maximum soil pressure in front of the pile by 16.18% and 11.59%, and a decrease in maximum bending stress of the pile by 3.27% and an increase by 14.48%, respectively.

Keywords

• Energy pile
• Sand
• Axial friction of pile-sand interface
• Soil resistance