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 Piles are structural members that are made of

steel, concrete, or timber.
 The purpose of pile foundations:
1. to transmit a super structure load to deeper
load bearing strata, and
2. to withstand lateral, vertical, uplift load and to
minimize the settlement.
PILE FOUNDATIONS
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CLASSIFICATION BASED ON
When is it needed:
 Top layers of soil are highly compressible for it to
MATERIALS OR COMPOSITION:
support structural loads through shallow foundations.
 Steel Piles
 Rock level is shallow enough for end bearing. Pile
foundations provide a more economical design. Pipe piles
 Lateral forces are relatively prominent. Rolled steel H-section piles
 In presence of expansive and collapsible soils at the  Concrete Piles
site. Pre-cast Piles
 Offshore structures Cast-in-situ Piles
 Strong uplift forces on shallow foundations due to
Bored-in-situ piles
shallow water table can be partly transmitted to
Piles.  Timber Piles

 For structures near flowing water (bridge abutments,  Composite Piles

etc.) to avoid the problems due to erosion.
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STEEL PILES  In many cases, the pipe piles are filled with concrete
 Usual length: 15 m – 60 m after they have been driven.
 Usual Load: 300 kN – 1200 kN  The allowable structural capacity for steel piles is:
 Advantage:
1. Relatively less hassle during installation and easy to achieve
cut-off level.
2. High driving force may be used for fast installation
3. Good to penetrate hard strata
4. Load carrying capacity is high
 Disadvantage:
1. Relatively expensive
2. Noise pollution during installation
3. Corrosion
4. Bend in piles while driving
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CONCRETE PILES
 Pre-cast Piles:
Usual length: 10 m – 15 m
Usual Load : 300 kN – 3000 kN
o Pre-cast Pre-stressed Piles
Usual length : 10m – 45 m
Usual Load: 7500 kN – 8500 kN
 Advantage:
1. It can be easily combined with concrete
superstructure
2. Corrosion resistant
3. It can bear hard driving
 Disadvantage:
1. Difficult to transport
2. Difficult to achieve desired cut-off
 Cast-in-situ piles or cast in-place piles:
a.) Cased cast-in place piles
Usual length: 5 m – 15 m
Usual Load: 200 kN – 500 kN
Advantages:
a. Relatively cheap
b. Allow for inspection before pouring concrete
c. Easy to extend
Disadvantages:
a. Difficult to splice after concreting
b. Thin casings may be damaged during driving
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Allowable load: b.) Uncased cast-in-place concrete piles

Qall = As fs + Ac fc Usual length: 5 m to 15 m
Usual load: 300 kN to 500 kN
Advantages:
a. Initially economical
b. Can be finished at any elevation
Disadvantages:
a. Voids may be created if concrete is placed rapidly
b. Difficult to splice after concreting
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c. In soft soils, the sides of the hole may cave in, 10
squeezing the concrete

COMPOSITE PILES
 The upper and lower portions of composite piles are
Allowable load: made of different materials.
Qall = Ac fc  Steel-and-concrete piles consist of a lower portion of
where: steel and an upper portion of cast-in place concrete.
Ac = area of cross section of concrete  This type of pile is used when the length of the pile

fc = allowable stress of concrete required for adequate bearing exceeds the capacity of
simple cast-in-place concrete piles.

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TYPES OF PILES BASED ON THEIR FUNCTION  If, instead of bedrock, a fairly compact and hard stratum of soil is
1. Point Bearing Piles encountered at a reasonable depth, piles can be extended a few
o If soil-boring records establish the presence of bedrock or rocklike meters into the hard stratum.
material at a site within a reasonable depth, piles can be
extended to the rock surface.
The ultimate pile load may be expressed
o In this case, the ultimate capacity of the piles depends as :
entirely on the load-bearing capacity of the underlying Qu = Qp + Qs
material.
Where:
Qp = load carried at the pile point
Qs = load carried by skin friction
developed at the side of the pile (caused
by shearing resistance between the soil
and the pile)

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2. Friction Piles
3. Compaction Piles
 When no layer of rock or rocklike material is present at a
 Under certain circumstances, piles are driven in
reasonable depth at a site, point bearing piles become very long
and uneconomical. granular soils to achieve proper compaction of soil
 In this type of subsoil, piles are driven through the softer material close to the ground surface. These piles are called
to specified depths. The resistance of these piles is derived from compaction piles.
skin friction.
 The lengths of compaction piles depend on factors
such as:
The lengths of friction piles depend on
the shear strength of the soil, the applied (a) the relative density of the soil before compaction,
load, and the pile size. (b) the desired relative density of the soil after
compaction, and
(c) the required depth of compaction.
o These piles are generally short; however, some field
tests are necessary to determine a reasonable length.
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CLASSIFICATION OF PILES BASED ON EQUATIONS FOR ESTIMATING PILE CAPACITY

THE NATURE OF THEIR PLACEMENT  The ultimate load-carrying capacity Qu of a pile is given by the
equation:
1. Displacement Piles Qu = Qp + Qs
 Driven piles are displacement piles, because they
move some soil laterally; hence, there is a
tendency for densification of soil surrounding
them.
 Concrete piles and closed-ended pipe piles are
high-displacement piles.
2. Non-displacement Piles
 Bored piles are non-displacement piles because
their placement causes very little change in the
state of stress in the soil.
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Point Bearing Capacity, Qp

Frictional Resistance, Qs
 Ultimate bearing capacity of soil considering general bearing
capacity equation. Shape, inclination, and depth factors are  The frictional, or skin, resistance of a pile may be
included in bearing capacity factors. written as:

 Since pile diameter is relatively small, third term may be dropped:

 Thus, the point bearing load capacity of piles is:

It needs to be reemphasized that, in the field, for full

mobilization of the point resistance (Qp), the pile tip must
go through a displacement of 10 to 25% of the pile width
(or diameter).
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MEYERHOF’S METHOD FOR ESTIMATING QP

ALLOWABLE LOAD, QALL
 After the total ultimate load-carrying capacity of a pile has
been determined by summing the point bearing capacity
and the frictional (or skin) resistance, a reasonable factor of
safety should be used to obtain the total allowable load for
each pile, or
Sand
 The point bearing capacity, qp , of a pile in sand generally
increases with the depth of embedment in the bearing
stratum and reaches a maximum value at an embedment ratio of
Lb/D = (Lb/Dd)cr
 In a homogeneous soil Lb is equal to the actual embedment
length of the pile, L.

Beyond the critical embedment ratio,

(Lb/D)cr , the value of qp remains constant
(qp = ql).

The factor of safety generally used ranges from 2.5 to 4, depending on

the uncertainties surrounding the calculation of ultimate load 21 22

Table 1

 For piles in sand, c’ = 0,

 However, Qp should not exceed the limiting value

Apql ; that is,

 The limiting point resistance is:

Figure 1 Variation of the maximum

values of N*q with soil friction angle
’ (Based on Meyerhof, G. G. (1976).
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MEYERHOF’S METHOD FOR ESTIMATING QP VESIC’S METHOD FOR ESTIMATING QP

Sand
Clay ( = 0)  Vesic (1977) proposed a method for estimating the pile point
 For piles in saturated clays under undrained conditions ( = 0), bearing capacity based on the theory of expansion of cavities.
the net ultimate load can be given as

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VESIC’S METHOD FOR ESTIMATING QP VESIC’S METHOD FOR ESTIMATING QP

 According to Vesic’s theory,  In order to estimate Ir and hence Irr , the following
N* = f (Irr) approximations may be used (Chen and Kulhawy, 1994):
where Irr = reduced rigidity index for the soil.

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VESIC’S METHOD FOR ESTIMATING QP

Table 2 Clay ( = 0)
 In saturated clay ( = 0 condition), the net ultimate point bearing
capacity of a pile can be approximated as:

 For saturated clay with no volume change ( = 0), Irr = Ir

 For  = 0,

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VESIC’S METHOD FOR ESTIMATING QP

VESIC’S METHOD FOR ESTIMATING QP  O’ Neill and Reese (1999) suggested the following approximate
relationships for Ir and the undrained cohesion, cu.
Table 3

 The preceding values can be approximated as

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COYLE AND CASTELLO’S METHOD FOR COYLE AND CASTELLO’S METHOD FOR
ESTIMATING QP IN SAND ESTIMATING QP IN SAND
 Coyle and Castello (1981) analyzed 24 large-scale field load tests
of driven piles in sand. On the basis of the test results, they
suggested that, in sand:

Figure 2
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CORRELATIONS FOR CALCULATING QP WITH CORRELATIONS FOR CALCULATING QP WITH

SPT AND CPT RESULTS IN GRANULAR SOIL SPT AND CPT RESULTS IN GRANULAR SOIL
 On the basis of field observations, Meyerhof (1976) also
suggested that the ultimate point resistance qp in a
homogeneous granular soil (L = Lb) may be obtained from
standard penetration numbers as

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EXAMPLE
Practice #1
Problem: FRICTIONAL RESISTANCE (QS) IN SAND
 Consider a 20-m-long concrete pile with a cross section of 0.407 m  The unit skin friction increases with depth more or less linearly to
x 0.407 m fully embedded in sand. For the sand, given: unit a depth of L’ and remains constant thereafter. The magnitude of
weight, γ = 18 kN/m3; and soil friction angle, ’ = 35o. Estimate the critical depth L’ may be 15 to 20 pile diameters. A conservative
the ultimate point Qp with each of the following: estimate would be : L’  15D
a. Meyerhof’s method
b. Vesic’s method
c. The method of Coyle and Castello
d. Based on the results of parts a, b, and c, adopt a value for Qp

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FRICTIONAL RESISTANCE (QS) IN SAND

 The frictional resistance:

 The magnitude of K varies with depth; it is

For z = 0 to L’, approximately equal to the Rankine passive earth
pressure coefficient, Kp , at the top of the pile and
and for z = L’ to L, may be less than the at-rest pressure coefficient, Ko ,
at a greater depth:

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FRICTIONAL RESISTANCE (QS) IN SAND

 Based on load test results in the field, Mansur and Hunter
(1970) reported the following average values of K.
H-piles ............................. K = 1.65
Steel pipe piles ……….… K = 1.26
Precast concrete piles .... K = 1.5

 Coyle and Castello (1981) proposed that

Figure 3

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CORRELATION WITH STANDARD PENETRATION

TEST RESULTS OF AVERAGE UNIT FRICTIONAL
RESISTANCE, FAV
 Meyerhof (1976) indicated that the average unit frictional resistance,
fav , for high-displacement driven piles may be obtained from average
standard penetration resistance values as:

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EXAMPLE
Practice #2
Problem: FRICTIONAL (SKIN) RESISTANCE IN CLAY
 Consider a concrete pile that is 0.305 m x 0.305 m   Method
in cross section in sand. The pile is 12 m long. The
 This method, proposed by Vijayvergiya and Focht (1972), is
following are the variations of N60 with depth.
based on the assumption that the displacement of soil
caused by pile driving results in a passive lateral pressure
at any depth and that the average unit skin resistance is

Estimate: a.) Qp
b.) Qs 45 46

FRICTIONAL (SKIN) RESISTANCE IN CLAY

Table 4  The total frictional resistance may be calculated as :
Qs = pLfav

 The mean value of cu is (cu(1)L1 + cu(2)L2 +…+)/L.

 The mean effective stress is:

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