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Field study of monotonic and cyclic lateral behaviour of piles in soft soils improved with and without vacuum preloading

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Abstract

Project Oufei is the largest individual reclamation project in Wenzhou city, China, and the main infrastructure consists of seawalls, sluices and separation dikes. These infrastructures face repeated horizontal forces from wind and waves; thus, it is essential to evaluate the lateral bearing of single pile used for sluice gates. This paper presents a case study on lateral monotonic and cyclic behaviour of bored piles in soft soils. Four instrumented piles were loaded monotonically and cyclically to assess the contribution of soil improvement by vacuum preloading with prefabricated vertical drains. The test results show that the ultimate horizontal capacities were 200 kPa and 100 kPa for piles in the treated zone and untreated zone, respectively, under monotonic loading and up to 220 kPa and 120 kPa for piles in the treated zone and untreated zone, respectively, under cyclic loading, indicating that the ultimate horizontal capacity of piles in the treated zone can meet the design requirement of 130 kPa. Moreover, soil improvement decreased the maximum bending moment of the bored piles and enhanced the pile head stiffness, and the influence depth of soil improvement is up to 10 m. This indicates that soil improvement by vacuum preloading with prefabricated vertical drains is effective and can be used for lateral loading in reclamation project.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2016YFC0800200), the National Nature Science Foundation Projects of China (Nos. 51778501, 51778500, 51778499, 51622810, 51878512 and 51620105008), the National Nature Science Foundation Projects of Zhejiang Province (Nos. LR18E080001 and LY17E080010), the Key Research and Development Program of Zhejiang Province (No. 2018C03038) and the Program of Science and Technology of Wenzhou (Grant Nos. S20160009 and S20170006), which collectively funded this project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Wenzhou University, Wenzhou, 325035, People’s Republic of China

    Hongtao Fu, Jun Wang, Quanyang Dong, Xiuqing Hu & Peng Wang

  2. The Key Laboratory of Engineering and Technology for Soft Soil Foundation and Tideland Reclamation of Zhejiang Province, Wenzhou, People’s Republic of China

    Hongtao Fu & Jun Wang

  3. The Innovation Centre of Tideland Reclamation and Ecological Protection, Wenzhou University, Wenzhou, 325035, Zhejiang, People’s Republic of China

    Hongtao Fu & Jun Wang

  4. Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, 310014, People’s Republic of China

    Yuanqiang Cai

  5. Wenzhou Oufei Development and Construction Investment Group Co., Ltd, Wenzhou, 325035, Zhejiang, People’s Republic of China

    Jinqiang Jin

  6. School of Engineering, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK

    Xueyu Geng

  7. Zhejiang Industry and Trade Vocational College, Wenzhou, 325035, People’s Republic of China

    Dikang Zhang

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  1. Hongtao Fu
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  2. Jun Wang
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  3. Yuanqiang Cai
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  7. Peng Wang
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  8. Xueyu Geng
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  9. Dikang Zhang
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Correspondence to Jun Wang.

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Fu, H., Wang, J., Cai, Y. et al. Field study of monotonic and cyclic lateral behaviour of piles in soft soils improved with and without vacuum preloading. Acta Geotech. 15, 3183–3192 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11440-020-00935-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11440-020-00935-7

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