Ultimate Lateral Resistance of Piles in Cohesive Soil-Article

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The study uses FLAC2D finite-difference analyses with the Modified Cam Clay model to examine the ultimate lateral resistance of single piles in cohesive soil. It assesses Broms’s widely used design method and investigates the effects of clay stiffness, pile length and diameter, axial load, and over-consolidation ratio (OCR).<br /><br />The numerical predictions generally produce lower ultimate lateral capacities than Broms’s method. Broms’s approach particularly overestimates resistance in softer clays; as soil stiffness increases, the numerical results move closer to Broms’s estimates. The influence of pile diameter is limited for the cases examined when the pile-length-to-diameter ratio is below about 14, though the paper’s conclusions also identify diameter as an important factor. Increasing vertical load reduces the pile’s ultimate lateral resistance, so axial loading should be considered in design.<br /><br />OCR also affects capacity: increasing OCR from 2 to 10 raises ultimate lateral resistance by about 20%. The authors attribute this to higher at-rest lateral earth pressure and soil confinement, and emphasize that pre-consolidation pressure should not be neglected.<br /><br />The work highlights the value of accounting for soil properties and loading conditions that Broms’s simplified method does not fully capture. Its results should be interpreted with care, however, because the analyses are two-dimensional and do not represent pile–soil interaction perpendicular to the loading direction. The study also omits effects of pile installation.

Keywords

FLAC2D

Modified Cam Clay

lateral resistance

single piles

cohesive soil

Broms method

over-consolidation ratio

axial load

pile diameter

soil stiffness