Evaluation of Filler Material Behavior in Pre-Bored Pile Foundation System Due to Slow Cyclic Lateral Loading in Sandy Soil

Abstract

Maintenance of a bridge structure is still the main issue in Indonesia due to the high cost of maintaining the elastomeric bearing especially in the remote area. Integral abutment bridges are becoming popular because the elastomeric bearings are eliminated, which can reduce the maintenance costs. Pre-bored pile foundation system is a typical foundation for integral bridge abutment to supports lateral displacement due to thermal expansion of the girder bridge. Pre-bored pile foundation system can be used to increase the pile flexibility using a pre-bored hole that filled with elastic materials such as bentonite slurry, loose sand or gravel. Some of the integral abutment bridges foundation design has proposed, but the previous studies only focus on the structural system, the soil characteristic behavior and soil response due to this system are still rarely explained. Therefore, it is necessary to examine the effects of cyclic loads on the filler material inside the prebored ring. The soil behavior for ground soil and filler material due to cyclic lateral loading were performed using macro-scale testing. In this paper, a series of two-way lateral cyclic loading tests were performed to evaluate the effect of slow cyclic lateral loading on the filler material behavior of the pre-bored pile foundation system. The experimental setup is explained in details, and the results are presented in the form of normalized bending moment and maximum lateral capacity charts against the number of cycles. Moreover, the densification effect of the filler material inside the pre-bored system due to the cyclic loading was evaluated.

Distribution of the Subgrade Reaction Modulus for Anchor Piles With Various Inclination Angles

“…There have been many horizontal loading experiments and shaking table experiments conducted on pile foundations installed in a soil tank. Conditions for the pile tip include the one in which the tip is fixed to the soil tank [12][13][14][15][16] and the one where the tip is installed in the ground [10,[17][18][19][20]. As an experiment noticing the bearing capacity of a pile, there are cases in which the lower end of a pile is installed in the ground [21].…”

“…The above-discussed experiments [10,18] targeted long piles, but we used a short pile. Most previous studies obtained the bending moment of piles from strain values measured by a strain gauge attached to a pile, from which subgrade reaction was calculated by taking a second derivative [12][13][14][15]17]. One of those studies assessed the depth distribution of subgrade reaction [15], but the strain on a pile was small in depth; thus, the measured value and subgrade reaction calculated from the value are both not quite reliable.…”