Lateral Load Carrying Capacity Of Different Combination Of Vertical And Batter Pile Groups In Sand

Abstract

Lateral forces are due to impact of ships during berthing, wave action, traction and breaking forces in bridges, wind forces in towers and transmission line towers. Pile foundations in such situations are usually provided by a combination of vertical and batter piles. Literatures pertaining to lateral load carrying capacity of batter pile groups of various combinations is limited, hence in the present work an attempt is made to conduct series of experiments on various combination of model batter pile groups in sand. The model tests were conducted on pile groups of 2x2, by keeping vertical length of pile 400mm, diameter of pile 20mm. The piles were driven in both, loose state of sand (relative density=35%) and medium dense sand (relative density =50%). The Batter angle is varied from-300 to+300with respect to vertical axis. It was found that the combination of all the piles with batter carried more lateral load than when compared to vertical piles or combination of vertical and batter piles in a group and also the lateral resistance was found to be more for all the combination of batter pile groups with load axis perpendicular to batter, than with load and batter in the same direction as in case of conventional nomenclature of positive and negative batter. Also as the density of sand is increased the lateral resistance was found to increase.