Input Page 1 of 3

Pile Design > Designing a Pile > Input

Input
Optionally enter a descriptive title for the design, and then enter the pile and design parameters and soil layers. Any errors
detected in the input, are reported in the Error List box.

Input items:

Pile type and dimensions

Safety factors
Design parameters
Settlement parameters
Design load
Soil layers

Pile and design parameters

Pile type and dimensions

Select one of the four basic pile installation types supported by the program:

Auger
Continuous flight auger (CFA)
Driven cast in-situ (DCIS)
Precast driven

Upon making your selection, the program will populate the input fields with values typically associated with the specific
installation type. The default values may be sufficient for use in preliminary design, and should be adjusted manually to
match actual conditions.

You can use the Optimise functions to let the program calculate the minimum pile length or diameter to achieve the desired
capacity.

Safety factors
Enter the factor of safety factors to apply to calculated side shear and end bearing capacity. Keep in mind that a fairly large
safety factor should be used for end bearing capacity. In the case of an auger pile founded in cohesionless material, for
example, a FOS of 1.5 is usually appropriate. A FOS of 2.5 to 3.0 is usually appropriate for CFA piles. To ensure deflection
compatibility, however, the FOS for end bearing should be about 3.0 to 4.0. In the case of pre-cast driven piles, the material
at the base is compacted and the recommended FOS for end bearing is 2.0.

Design parameters
Enter the parameters that determine the shaft friction and end bearing capacity:
Ku : Coefficient of lateral earth pressure
Shaft capacity : Shaft friction capacity (as a percentage of UCS) for the portion of the pile extending into rock (typical
values)
Base capacity : End bearing capacity (as percentage of UCS) for the portion of the pile extending into rock (typical
values)

Refer to the theory and application for more an explanation of the above parameters.

Settlement parameters

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Pile Design > Designing a Pile > Input

Enter the values of the parameters that influence the pile deformation:
K1 : Side shear transfer constant (typical values)
K2 : Side shear transfer constant (typical values)
K3 : End bearing transfer constant (typical values)
S/EB ratio : Pile diameter percentage for end bearing (typical values)
% fines : Percentage fines for ultimate adhesion transfer

The constants K1, K2 and K3depend on the soil type and type. Refer to the theory and application for more an explanation of
theses parameters and typical values.

Design load
Enter the design loads:

Dead load, excluding the weight of the pile itself

Live load
Ultimate limit state load factors for dead and live load

Concrete design parameters

The program performs a rudimentary reinforced concrete design when generating a reinforcement bending schedule. Enter
the material grades to use in the design:

Concrete cube or cylinder strength(depending on the design code)

Reinforcement grade

Soil layers
Define one or more soil layers up to at least the depth of the pile. The layers must be numbered in sequence, starting at
layer no 1 for the surface layer.

For each layer, enter a depth and select its material type and consistence. On selecting the material and consistency, the
program inserts default values for the layer parameters. These values are typical for the material and consistency and may be
suitable for preliminary design. For detail design, you should modify the soil parameters to match the actual soil conditions
in the geotechnical report:
H2O : Indicate whether a soil layer (and all layers below) is lower than the water table
γ : Soil unit weight
c : Undrained shear strength for cohesive soils (MPa)
δ : Friction angle between the soil and pile shaft for cohesionless soils (typical values)
Nq : Dimensionless bearing capacity factor for cohesionless soils (typical values)
UCS : Ultimate compressive strength for rock (kPa) (typical values)
f : Shaft friction capacity (kPa), calculated and displayed alongside the soil parameters for each layer

You can indicate whether a given layer is saturated with water. When setting a layer as saturated, all subsequent, deeper
layers are automatically set to be saturated as well. If part of a layer is dry and part is saturated, you should enter it as two
separate layers.

Suggestion: If in doubt, use the "auto calculate layer properties" function to calculate the UCS values for all layers.

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Pile Design > Designing a Pile > Input

More information
Method for calculating the ultimate bearing capacity and typical design parameters
Assumptions for reinforced concrete design

mk:@MSITStore:C:\Prokon\Help\Pile.chm::/Topics/analysis/input.htm 6/15/2021