Document Type : Original Article

Authors

• Hossein Sarbaz ¹
• Masoud Khahanipour ²

¹ Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, TN.C, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

² Department of Civil Engineering, TN.C, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Under-reamed pile, due to their protrusions along the cross-section, exhibit higher bearing capacity compared to conventional piles and are considered an efficient solution for founda-tion construction on weak soils, particularly clayey soils. This study investigates the influ-ence of geotechnical parameters, including internal friction angle, cohesion, and clay compac-tion, on the compressive bearing capacity of aUnder-reamed pile using PLAXIS 3D finite el-ement software. For this purpose, a concrete piled raft with a length of 10 m and a diameter of 0.7 m was modeled in four different soil types (loose clay, semi-dense clay, dense clay, and alluvial soil of Isfahan). The effects of varying cohesion (30-90 kPa) and internal friction angle (15-45°) were analyzed separately. Results indicate that an increase in clay density sig-nificantly enhances the bearing capacity of the Under-reamed pile, such that the bearing ca-pacity in dense clay is more than six times that in loose clay. Additionally, increasing cohe-sion from 30 to 90 kPa leads to an approximate 62% increase in bearing capacity, while in-creasing the internal friction angle from 15° to 45° results in about a 59% increase. Valida-tion of the numerical results against previous studies shows excellent agreement. Overall, among the parameters investigated, soil type has the most pronounced effect, whereas inter-nal friction angle has the least influence on the bearing capacity of Under-reamed pile

Keywords

• Belled pile
• Bearing capacity
• PLAXIS 3D
• Clay soil
• cohesion

Main Subjects

• Geotechnics