Driven cast-in-situ pile capacity: insights from dynamic and static load testing

Abstract

Driven cast-in-situ (DCIS) piles are classified as large displacement piles. However, the use of an oversized driving shoe introduces additional complexities influencing shaft resistance mobilisation, over and above those applicable to preformed displacement piles. Therefore, several design codes restrict the magnitude of shaft resistance in DCIS pile design. In this paper, a series of dynamic load tests was performed on the temporary steel driving tubes during DCIS pile installation at three UK sites. The instrumented piles were subsequently subjected to maintained compression load tests to failure. The mobilised shear stresses inferred from the dynamic tests during driving were two to five times smaller than those on the as-constructed piles during maintained load testing. This was attributed to soil loosening along the tube shaft arising from the oversized base shoe. These radial stress reductions appear to be reversible by the freshly cast concrete fluid pressures, which provide lower-bound estimates of radial total stress inferred from the measured shear stresses during static loading. This recovery in shaft resistance is not recognised in some European design practices, resulting in conservative design lengths. Whilst the shaft resistance of DCIS piles was underpredicted by the dynamic load tests, reasonable estimates of base resistance were obtained.