Discussions and Closures
Closure to “Causes of Failure and Strengthening
Measures of a Pile Foundation Supporting
Transmission Line Tower” by Vaibhav Mittal
and Manojit Samanta
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Vaibhav Mittal, S.M.ASCE
Research Scholar, Geotechnical Engineering Group, Council of Scientific
and Industrial Research, Central Building Research Institute, Roorkee,
Uttarakhand 247667, India; Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research,
Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh 201002, India. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000
-0002-5094-2333. Email: vaibhav.cbri19a@acsir.res.in
Manojit Samanta
Senior Scientist, Geotechnical Engineering Group, Council of Scientific
and Industrial Research, Central Building Research Institute, Roorkee,
Uttarakhand 247667, India; Assistant Professor, Academy of Scientific
and Innovative Research, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh 201002, India (corre-
sponding author). ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6017-725X. Email:
manojit@cbri.res.in
https://doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)CF.1943-5509.0001592
Introduction
The writers would like to thank the discusser for his interest in the
paper and preparing the discussion presented herein. The writers
thank the discusser for his insightful comments and suggestions
on the technical contents presented in this paper, particularly the
formation of yield surface or zone of influence between the sur-
rounding soil and adjacent piles. Different categories of piles and
their capacities, length of pile required for strengthening, and sepa-
ration between the piles are the major points raised by the discusser.
Following the comments made by the discusser, an extensive
numerical investigation was carried out in this closure to remove
any ambiguity.
Different Categories of Piles and Their Capacities
This section elaborates on different categories of piles obtained from
the low-strain pile integrity tests. According to the reflectograms ob-
tained, different defects were identified, and piles were divided into
four categories: PC-I, PC-II, PC-III, and PC-IV. Here, PC-II denotes
the piles whose reflectograms show no clear indication of bulb
formation, i.e., 0% bulb and length equal to the designed pile. The
third case (PC-III) denotes the piles whose lengths are shorter than
the designed pile, i.e., 2.8–3.4 m, with the exact diameter of the
bulb formation. According to the reflectograms obtained from the
integrity tests, the major difference among the two pile categories,
i.e., PC-II and PC-IV, is when the exact length (i.e., 3.8 m) of the
pile is considered with 0% bulb formation, classified as PC-II.
However, PC-IV categorizes the piles with shorter lengths (2.4–
3.2 m) and 0% bulb formation.
According to the numerical results published in the original pa-
per, a small difference (approximately 6%) with minor relevance
has been found due to typographical errors. As per the actual
results, the safe compressive capacities for PC-II fall below the
required design strength and require an augmentation of 30.9 t.
© ASCE 07022004-1
J. Perform. Constr. Facil., 2022, 36(4): 07022004
However, no other discrepancies have been observed in the pub-
lished results.
Length of Pile Required for Strengthening
Figs. 1(a and b) give the schematic representation of different
strengthening techniques proposed for the augmentation of re-
quired capacities in the existing piles (EPs). A beam 0.6 × 0.45 m
in cross section and 5 m in length has been provided for the
monolithic connections between the existing and additional piles.
Fig. 1(c) shows the cross-sectional and reinforcement details of the
beam. The center-to-center spacing or separation distance between
the adjacent and the existing piles is equal to 2.0 m (2Bu ). An edge
length of 500 mm (from the center of the pile to the edge of the
beam) has been left on both sides of adjacent piles, as shown in
Fig. 1(a). However, in the case of shallow foundation, the center-
to-center spacing provided is equal to 2.4 m (2.4Bu ), constructed at
the opposite edges of the beam, as shown in Fig. 1(b).
As mentioned in the original paper, strengthening measures in
the form of additional straight-shaft underreamed piles and shallow
foundations have been provided. However, according to the dis-
cusser, pile length from 2.4 m with a shaft diameter of 300 mm
and bulb diameter of 750 mm are sufficient for strengthening of
the existing piles. An extensive numerical investigation had been
performed as per the recommendation, considering the existing pile
of 3.8 m length, with 50% of original bulb diameter. The results
obtained show that the maximum safe uplift capacity for this ar-
rangement is 19.29 t, as shown in Fig. 2. However, the maximum
augmentation required for the present study is 28.2 t, as shown in
published results. Hence, depending on the required augmentation
in capacities, additional piles of length 3.8 m, diameter 300 mm,
and bulb diameter 750 mm are provided on either side of the ex-
isting pile, as shown in Fig. 1(a). The present study involves the
estimation of causes of failure of transmission line towers, fol-
lowed by a numerical investigation of strengthening measures us-
ing underreamed pile foundation. However, other options such as
shallow foundations and pile foundations are presented to the im-
plementing agency to consider the optimization of the additional
piles for minimization of costs. The minimization of costs was con-
sidered based on the availability of labor and resources required for
the construction in the field.
Separation between the Piles
The numerical and Indian standard methods for uplift capacities and
separation distance between the underreamed piles in the original
conditions were compared with those in Lin et al. (2015) by the
discusser. However, it is not clear whether the method performed
and calculation of uplift capacities as proposed in Lin et al. (2015)
are applicable for separation distance calculation in group of under-
reamed piles. Therefore, an extensive numerical investigation was
J. Perform. Constr. Facil.