Centrifuge modeling of unreinforced and multi-row stabilizing piles reinforced landslides subjected to reservoir water level fluctuation

With the construction of the Three Gorges Reservoir dam,frequent reservoir landslide events have been recorded.In recent years,multi-row stabilizing piles(MRSPs)have been used to stabilize massive reservoir landslides in China.In this study,two centrifuge model tests were carried out to study the unreinforced and MRSP-reinforced slopes subjected to reservoir water level(RWL)operation,using the Taping landslide as a prototype.The results indicate that the RWL rising can provide lateral support within the submerged zone and then produce the inward seepage force,eventually strengthening the slope stability.However,a rapid RWL drawdown may induce outward seepage forces and a sudden debuttressing effect,consequently reducing the effective soil normal stress and triggering partial pre-failure within the RWL fluctuation zone.Furthermore,partial deformation and subsequent soil structure damage generate excess pore water pressures,ultimately leading to the overall failure of the reservoir landslide.This study also reveals that a rapid increase in the downslope driving force due to RWL drawdown significantly intensifies the lateral earth pressures exerted on the MRSPs.Conversely,the MRSPs possess a considerable reinforcement effect on the reservoir landslide,transforming the overall failure into a partial deformation and failure situated above and in front of the MRSPs.The mechanical transfer behavior observed in the MRSPs demonstrates a progressive alteration in relation to RWL fluctuations.As the RWL rises,the mechanical states among MRSPs exhibit a growing imbalance.The shear force transfer factor(i.e.the ratio of shear forces on pile of the n th row to that of the first row)increases significantly with the RWL drawdown.This indicates that the mechanical states among MRSPs tend toward an enhanced equilibrium.The insights gained from this study contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the failure mechanisms of reservoir landslides and the mechanical behavior of MRSPs in reservoir banks.

Thermal performance of cast-in-place piles with artificial ground freezing in permafrost regions

During the construction of cast-in-place piles in warm permafrost,the heat carried by concrete and the cement hydration reaction can cause strong thermal disturbance to the surrounding permafrost.Since the bearing capacity of the pile is quite small before the full freeze-back,the quick refreezing of the native soils surrounding the cast-in-place pile has become the focus of the infrastructure construction in permafrost.To solve this problem,this paper innovatively puts forward the application of the artificial ground freezing(AGF)method at the end of the curing period of cast-in-place piles in permafrost.A field test on the AGF was conducted at the Beiluhe Observation and Research Station of Frozen Soil Engineering and Environment(34°51.2'N,92°56.4'E)in the Qinghai Tibet Plateau(QTP),and then a 3-D numerical model was established to investigate the thermal performance of piles using AGF under different engineering conditions.Additionally,the long-term thermal performance of piles after the completion of AGF under different conditions was estimated.Field experiment results demonstrate that AGF is an effective method to reduce the refreezing time of the soil surrounding the piles constructed in permafrost terrain,with the ability to reduce the pile-soil interface temperatures to below the natural ground temperature within 3 days.Numerical results further prove that AGF still has a good cooling effect even under unfavorable engineering conditions such as high pouring temperature,large pile diameter,and large pile length.Consequently,the application of this method is meaningful to save the subsequent latency time and solve the problem of thermal disturbance in pile construction in permafrost.The research results are highly relevant for the spread of AGF technology and the rapid building of pile foundations in permafrost.

Energy‐based analysis of seismic damage mechanism of multi‐anchor piles in tunnel crossing landslide area

To study the damage mechanism of multi‐anchor piles in tunnel crossing landslide area under earthquake,the damping performance of multi‐anchor piles was discussed.The energy dissipation springs were used as the optimization device of the anchor head to carry out the shaking table comparison test on the reinforced slope.The Hilbert spectrum and Hilbert marginal spectrum were proposed to analyze the seismic damage mechanism of the multi‐anchor piles,and the peak Fourier spectrum amplitude(PFSA)was used to verify the effectiveness of the method.The results show that the seismic energy is concentrated in the high‐frequency component(30-40Hz)of the Hilbert spectrum and the low‐frequency component(12-30 Hz)of the marginal spectrum.This indicates that they can be combined with the distribution law of the PFSA to identify the overall and local dynamic responses of the multi‐anchored piles,respectively.The stretchable deformation of the energy‐dissipation springs improves the coordination of the multi‐anchor piles,resulting in better pile integrity.The damage mechanism of the multi‐anchor piles is elucidated based on the energy method:local damage at the top and middle areas of the multi‐anchor piles is mainly caused by the low‐frequency component(12-30 Hz)of the marginal spectrum under the action of 0.15g and 0.20g seismic intensities.As the seismic intensity increases to 0.30g,the dynamic response of the slope is further amplified by the high‐frequency component(30-40 Hz)of the Hilbert energy spectrum,which leads to the overall damage of the multi‐anchor piles.

Analytical solutions for the restraint effect of isolation piles against tunneling-induced vertical ground displacements

This paper presents a simplified elastic continuum method for calculating the restraint effect of isolation piles on tunneling-induced vertical ground displacement,which can consider not only the relative sliding of the pile‒soil interface but also the pile rowesoil interaction.The proposed method is verified by comparisons with existing theoretical methods,including the boundary element method and the elastic foundation method.The results reveal the restraining mechanism of the isolation piles on vertical ground displacements due to tunneling,i.e.the positive and negative restraint effects exerted by the isolation piles jointly drive the ground vertical displacement along the depth direction from the original tunneling-induced nonlinear variation situation to a relatively uniform situation.The results also indicate that the stiffness of the pile‒soil interface,including the pile shaft‒surrounding soil interface and pile tip-supporting soil interface,describes the strength of the pile‒soil interaction.The pile rows can confine the vertical ground displacement caused by the tunnel excavation to the inner side of the isolation piles and effectively prevent the vertical ground displacement from expanding further toward the outer side of the isolation piles.

Interface Mechanical Behavior of Flexible Piles Under Lateral Loads in OWT Systems

This paper investigates the interface mechanical behavior of flexible piles with L_p/D>10 under lateral load and an overturning moment in monotonic loading conditions.To modify the beam-on-Winkler-foundation model of piles in offshore wind farms,the energy-based variational method is used.The soil is treated as a multi-layered elastic continuum with the assumption of three-dimensional displacements,the pile modeled as an Euler-Bernoulli beam.A series of cases using MATLAB programming was conducted to investigate the simplified equations of initial stiffness.The results indicated that the interaction between soil layers and the applied force position should be taken into account in calculating the horizontal soil resistance.Additionally,the distributed moment had a limiting effect on the lateral capacity of a flexible pile.Moreover,to account for the more realistic conditions of OWT systems,field data from the Donghai Bridge offshore wind farm were used.

Influence of Vertical Load on Lateral-Loaded Monopiles by Numerical Simulation

Monopiles are the most common foundation form of offshore wind turbines,which bear the vertical load,lateral load and bending moment.It remains uncertain whether the applied vertical load increases the lateral deflection of the pile.This paper investigated the influence of vertical load on the behaviour of monopiles installed in the sand under combined load using three-dimensional numerical methods.The commercial software PLAXIS was used for simulations in this paper.Monopiles were modelled as a structure incorporating linear elastic material behaviour and soil was modelled using the Hardening-Soil(HS)constitutive model.The monopiles under vertical load,lateral load and combined vertical and lateral loads were respectively studied taking into account the sequence of load application and pile slenderness ratio(L/D;L and D are the length and diameter of the pile).Results suggest that the sequence of load application plays a major role in how vertical load affects the deflection behaviour of the pile.Specifically,when L/D ratios obtained by lengthening the pile while keeping its diameter constant are 3,5 and 8,the relationships between lateral load and the deflection behaviour of the pile under the effect of vertical load demonstrate a similar trend.Furthermore,the cause of increased lateral capacity of the pile under the action of applied vertical load in the common practical application case and in the VPL case was analyzed by studying the variation law of soil stress along the pile embedment.Results confirm that the confining effect of vertical load increases means effective stress of the soil around the pile,thus increasing soil stiffness and pile capacity.

Thermal integrity profiling of cast-in-situ piles in sand using fiber-optic distributed temperature sensing

Defects in cast-in-situ piles have an adverse impact on load transfer at the pile‒soil interface and pile bearing capacity. In recent years, thermal integrity profiling (TIP) has been developed to measure temperature profiles of cast-in-situ piles, enabling the detection of structural defects or anomalies at the early stage of construction. However, using this integrity testing method to evaluate potential defects in cast-in-situ piles requires a comprehensive understanding of the mechanism of hydration heat transfer from piles to surrounding soils. In this study, small-scale model tests were conducted in laboratory to investigate the performance of TIP in detecting pile integrity. Fiber-optic distributed temperature sensing (DTS) technology was used to monitor detailed temperature variations along model piles in sand. Additionally, sensors were installed in sand to measure water content and matric suction. An interpretation method against available DTS-based thermal profiles was proposed to reveal the potential defective regions. It shows that the temperature difference between normal and defective piles is more obvious in wet sand. In addition, there is a critical zone of water migration in sand due to the water absorption behavior of cement and temperature transfer-induced water migration in the early-age concrete setting. These findings could provide important insight into the improvement of the TIP testing method for field applications.

Combined load bearing capacity of rigid piles embedded in a crossanisotropic clay deposit using 3D finite element lower bound

In this study,an iterative-based three-dimensional finite element lower bound in association with the second-order cone programming method is adopted to evaluate the limit load of a single pile embedded in cross-anisotropic soils under general loading condition.The lower bound solutions of the pile embedded in an anisotropic soil deposit can be found by formulating the element equilibrium,equilibrium of shear and normal stresses along discontinuities,boundary conditions,yield function,and optimizing the objective function through the second-order cone programming method in conjunction with an iterative-based update procedure.A general loading condition is considered to profile the expansion of the safe load in the vertical-horizontal-moment(V-H-M)space.The results of this study are compared and validated against three different cases including an isotropic lateral loading,anisotropic end bearing capacity,and a pile embedded in an isotropic soil deposit under general loading condition.A parametric study is conducted to evaluate the impact of different influencing factors.It was found that the effect of anisotropy on the variation of lateral limit load of a single pile is more pronounced than the corresponding vertical and bending moment limit loads,whereas the interface properties have more significant effects on the vertical and bending moment limit loads in comparison to the lateral limit load.

Soil Plug Effect Prediction and Pile Driveability Analysis for Large-Diameter Steel Piles in Ocean Engineering

Long steel piles with large diameters have been more widely used in the field of ocean engineering. Owing to the pile with a large diameter, soil plug development during pile driving has great influences on pile driveability and bearing capacity. The response of soil plug developed inside the open-ended pipe pile during the dynamic condition of pile-driving is different from the response under the static condition of loading during service. This paper addresses the former aspect. A numerical procedure for soil plug effect prediction and pile driveabihty analysis is proposed and described. By taking into consideration of the pile dimension effect on side and tip resistance, this approach introduces a dimensional coefficient to the conventional static eqnihbrium equations for the plug differential unit and proposes an improved static equity method for the plug effect prediction. At the same time, this approach introduces a simplified model by use of one-dimensional stress wave equation to simulate the interaction between soil plug and pile inner wall. The proposed approach has been applied in practical engineering analyses. Results show that the calculated plug effect and pile driveabihty based on the proposed approach agree well with the observed data.

Response of single piles and pipelines in liquefaction-induced lateral spreads using controlled blasting

Two full-scale experiments using controlled blasting were conducted in the Port of Tokachi on Hokkaido Island, Japan,to assess the behavior of piles and pipelines subjected to lateral spreading.Test specimens were extensively instrumented with strain gauges to measure the distribution of moment during lateral spreading.This allowed us to compute the loading condition,as well as to conduct damage and performance assessments on the piles and pipelines.This paper presents the test results and discussions on the response of single piles and pipelines observed from the full-scale experiments.Based on the test results,it can be concluded that using controlled blasting successfully liquefied the soil,and subsequently induced lateral spreading.The movements of the single pile,as well as the transverse pipelines,were approximately the same as the free field soil movement.Observed moment distribution of the single pile indicated that global translation of the liquefied soil layer provided insignificant force to the pile.In addition,the degree of fixity at the pile tip significantly affected the moment along the pile as well as the pile head displacement.The pile with a higher degree of fixity at the pile tip had smaller pile head displacement but larger maximum moment.

Physical modelling of pipe piles under oblique pullout loads using transparent soil and particle image velocimetry

A small-scale physical modelling method was developed to investigate the pile bearing capacity and the soil displacement around the pile using transparent soil and particle image velocimetry(PIV) technique. Transparent sand was made of baked quartz and a pore fluid with a matching refractive index. The physical modelling system consists of a loading system, a laser light, a CCD camera, an optical platform and a computer for image analyzing. A distinctive laser speckle was generated by the interaction between the laser light and transparent soil. Two laser speckle images before and after deformation were used to calculate the soil displacement field using PIV. Two pipe piles with different diameters under oblique pullout loads at angles of 0°, 30°, 45°, 60° and 90° were used in tests. The load-displacement response, oblique pullout ultimate resistances and soil displacement fields were then studied. The test results show that the developed physical modelling method and transparent soil are suitable for pile-soil interaction problems. The soil displacements around the pipe piles will improve the understanding on the capacity of pipe piles under oblique pullout loads.

Bearing behavior and failure mechanism of squeezed branch piles

The current practice for the design of squeezed branch piles is mainly based on the calculated bearing capacity of circular piles. Insufficient considerations of the load-transfer mechanism, branch effect and failure mechanism, as well as overreliance on pile load tests, have led to conservative designs and limited application. This study performs full-scale field load tests on instrumented squeezed branch piles and shows that the shaft force curves have obvious drop steps at the branch position, indicating that the branches can effectively share the pile top load. The effects of branch position, spacing, number and diameter on the pile bearing capacity are analyzed numerically. The numerical results indicate that the squeezed branch piles have two types of failure mechanisms, i.e. individual branch failure mechanism and cylindrical failure mechanism. Further research should focus on the development of the calculation method to determine the bearing capacities of squeezed branch piles considering these two failure mechanisms.

Behavior of raft on settlement reducing piles:Experimental model study

An experimental program is conducted on model piled rafts in sand soil.The experimental program is aimed to investigate the behavior of raft on settlement reducing piles.The testing program includes tests on models of single pile,unpiled rafts and rafts on 1,4,9,or 16 piles.The model piles beneath the rafts are closed ended displacement piles installed by driving.Three lengths of piles are used in the experiments to represent slenderness ratio,L/D,of 20,30 and 50,respectively.The dimensions of the model rafts are 30 cm×30 cm with different thickness of 0.5 cm,1.0 cm or 1.5 cm.The raft-soil stiffness ratios of the model rafts ranging from 0.39 to 10.56 cover flexible to very stiff rafts.The improvement in the ultimate bearing capacity is represented by the load improvement ratio,LIR,and the reductions in average settlement and differential settlement are represented by the settlement ratio,SR,and the differential settlement ratio,DSR,respectively.The effects of the number of settlement reducing piles,raft relative stiffness,and the slenderness ratio of piles on the load improvement ratio,settlement ratio and differential settlement ratio are presented and discussed.The results of the tests show the effectiveness of using piles as settlement reduction measure with the rafts.As the number of settlement reducing piles increases,the load improvement ratio increases and the differential settlement ratio decreases.

Shaking table test for reinforcement of soil slope with multiple sliding surfaces by reinforced double-row anti-slide piles

Despite the continuous advancements of engineering construction in high-intensity areas,many engineering landslides are still manufactured with huge thrust force,and double-row piles are effective to control such large landslides.In this study,large shaking table test were performed to test and obtain multi-attribute seismic data such as feature image,acceleration,and dynamic soil pressure.Through the feature image processing analysis,the deformation characteristics for the slope reinforced by double-row piles were revealed.By analyzing the acceleration and the dynamic soil pressure time domain,the spatial dynamic response characteristics were revealed.Using Fast Fourier Transform and half-power bandwidth,the damping ratio of acceleration and dynamic soil pressure was obtained.Following that,the Seism Signal was used to calculate the spectral displacement of the accelerations to obtain the regional differences of spectral displacement.The results showed that the overall deformation mechanism of the slope originates from tension failure in the soil mass.The platform at the back of the slope was caused by seismic subsidence,and the peak acceleration ratio was positively correlated with the relative pile heights.The dynamic soil pressure of the front row piles showed an inverted"K"-shaped distribution,but that of the back row piles showed an"S"-shaped distribution.The predominant frequency of acceleration was 2.16 Hz,and the main frequency band was 0.7-6.87 Hz;for dynamic soil pressure,the two parameters became 1.15 Hz and 0.5-6.59 Hz,respectively.In conclusion,dynamic soil pressure was more sensitive to dampening effects than acceleration.Besides,compared to acceleration,dynamic soil pressure exhibited larger loss factors and lower resonance peaks.Finally,back row pile heads were highly sensitive to spectral displacement compared to front row pile heads.These findings may be of reference value for future seismic designs of double-row piles.

Regressive approach for predicting bearing capacity of bored piles from cone penetration test data

In this study, th e least sq u are su p p o rt v ecto r m achine （LSSVM） alg o rith m w as applied to predicting th ebearing capacity o f b ored piles e m b ed d ed in sand an d m ixed soils. Pile g eo m etry an d cone p e n e tra tio nte s t （CPT） resu lts w ere used as in p u t variables for pred ictio n o f pile bearin g capacity. The d ata u se d w erecollected from th e existing litera tu re an d consisted o f 50 case records. The application o f LSSVM w ascarried o u t by dividing th e d ata into th re e se ts： a train in g se t for learning th e pro b lem an d obtain in g arelationship b e tw e e n in p u t variables an d pile bearin g capacity, and testin g an d validation sets forevaluation o f th e predictive an d g en eralization ability o f th e o b tain ed relationship. The predictions o f pilebearing capacity by LSSVM w ere evaluated by com paring w ith ex p erim en tal d ata an d w ith th o se bytrad itio n al CPT-based m eth o d s and th e gene ex pression pro g ram m in g （GEP） m odel. It w as found th a t th eLSSVM perform s w ell w ith coefficient o f d eterm in atio n , m ean, an d sta n d ard dev iatio n equivalent to 0.99,1.03, an d 0.08, respectively, for th e testin g set, an d 1, 1.04, an d 0.11, respectively, for th e v alidation set. Thelow values o f th e calculated m ean squared e rro r an d m ean ab so lu te e rro r indicated th a t th e LSSVM w asaccurate in p redicting th e pile bearing capacity. The results o f com parison also show ed th a t th e p roposedalg o rith m p red icted th e pile bearin g capacity m ore accurately th a n th e trad itio n al m eth o d s including th eGEP m odel.

Erective Sea Embankment with PCC Piles

The sea embankment is a critical civil works in marine and coastal engineering. In this study, an innovative technique is proposed for constructing erective sea embankments. In the construction of sea embankments, this technique integrates PCC pile installation, PVDs drainage systems, and geotextile reinforcements, resulting in sea embankments with PCC piles. In the application of a sea embankment with PCC piles, PCC piles are employed as the retaining structures; the soft sea ground inside PCC piles is drained and improved by PVDs and vacuum-surcharge combined preloading; geotextile-reinforced backfills lying over the improved soft ground form the embankment body. Brief descriptions of the fundamentals, design and construction of the sea embankment with PCC piles are presented. A case study on the stability of sea embankment with PCC piles is presented as well.

Effect of Local and Global Scour on Lateral Response of Single Piles in Different Soil Conditions

Marine structures, offshore platforms and bridge piers are usually supported on foundation piles. These piles are subjected to lateral loading due to wind, waves and currents. Piles installed in marine or river environments are susceptible to scour depending on wave and current characteristics and soil types. In this paper, the effect of local and global scour on behavior of laterally loaded piles installed in different soil conditions has been investigated. Finite element model (FEM) using the software program PLAXIS and Winkler model using the software program LPILE were used in the analyses. Different parameters were investigated such as soil types, scour depth, scour hole dimension, pile material, submerged condition, magnitude of lateral load and load eccentricity. The results showed that scour has a significant impact on piles installed in sand and a less significant impact on piles installed in clay. Global scour has a significant impact on pile lateral displacement and bending stresses. The effect of scour is more significant if piles are subjected to large lateral loads due to the nonlinear response of pile-soil system. Effect of scour of stiff clayey soils on piles is more pronounced than that of soft clayey soils.

Model tests and numerical analyses on horizontal impedance functions of inclined single piles embedded in cohesionless soil

Horizontal impedance functions of inclined single piles are measured experimentally for model soil-pile systems with both the effects of local soil nonlinearity and resonant characteristics.Two practical pile inclinations of 5掳 and 10掳 in addition to a vertical pile embedded in cohesionless soil and subjected to lateral harmonic pile head loadings for a wide range of frequencies are considered.Results obtained with low-to-high amplitude of lateral loadings on model soil-pile systems encased in a laminar shear box show that the local nonlinearities have a profound impact on the horizontal impedance functions of piles.Horizontal impedance functions of inclined piles are found to be smaller than the vertical pile and the values decrease as the angle of pile inclination increases.Distinct values of horizontal impedance functions are obtained for the ＇positive＇ and ＇negative＇ cycles of harmonic loadings,leading to asymmetric force-displacement relationships for the inclined piles.Validation of these experimental results is carried out through three-dimensional nonlinear finite element analyses,and the results from the numerical models are in good agreement with the experimental data.Sensitivity analyses conducted on the numerical models suggest that the consideration of local nonlinearity at the vicinity of the soil-pile interface influence the response of the soil-pile systems.

Approximate Calculation of Oblique Wave Transmission from A Single-Row of Rectangular Piles

Transmissions of oblique incident wave from a row of rectangular piles are analyzed theoretically. The incident angle of plane wave is taken as g = 90° , there then is the transmission coefficient ｜T｜ = 1 （This is a paradox）. In this paper, by means of the approximate relation between the transmitted and incident wave angle found from the shape of a slit, the paradoxical phenomenon is removed. On the basis of the continuality of the pressure and flux and the analysis of flow resistance at the row of rectangular piles, formulas of reflection and transmission coefficients are obtained. The transmission and reflection coefficients predicted by the present model quite agree with those of laboratory experiments in previous references

Research on Ratio of New Energy Vehicles to Charging Piles in China

With the widespread of new energy vehicles, charging piles have alsobeen continuously installed and constructed. In order to make the number of pilesmeet the needs of the development of new energy vehicles, this study aims toapply the method of system dynamics and combined with the grey prediction theory to determine the parameters as well as to simulate and analyze the ratio ofvehicles to chargers. Through scenario analysis, it is predicted that by 2030, thisratio will gradually decrease from 1.79 to 1. In order to achieve this ratio as 1:1, itis necessary to speed up the construction of public charging station or privatecharging station. Due to global warming, the attitudes of countries towards fuelvehicles have become increasingly tough. There is huge uncertainty in the growthrate of electric vehicles. Therefore, it is recommended that the construction ofcharging station be deployed in advance to avoid hindering the development ofelectric vehicles in the future.