Bearing Capacity of Defective Reinforced Concrete Pile in Sand-model Study

Concrete piles that were poorly constructed or analyzed in their soil analyses may have structural or geotechnical defects.To examine such defects,an experimental study was conducted to investigate how a defective reinforced concrete pile behaved.These piles were installed and subjected to a compression axial load in the sand that had relative densities of 30%,60%,and 80%.The tests were performed using four concrete model piles:one intact pile and the other three piles had a structural defect(necking)at three different positions of the pile at(0.25 L from the top,center,and 0.25 L bottom).Geotechnical defect(soft layer or debris)was studied using Styrofoam layer at various vertical distances under the pile toe with Y/D=(0,0.5,1 and 1.5)D.The test results showed that the bearing capacity of the structural defect was the most in the case of a neck at 0.25 L from the bottom,followed by a neck at the center,and finally a neck at 0.25 L from the top.In the case of a geotechnical defect,the bearing capacity of the pile decreased with the decrease of the vertical distance between the soft layer and the pile toe.