Analysis on Response of a Single Pile Subjected to Tension Load Considering Excavation Effects

Abstract

With the development of urbanization, numerous excavations are carried out to facilitate the development of underground space. As a support for tunnel structures, uplift piles are often installed prior to tunnel excavation. The excavation inevitably causes disturbance to the soil below the excavation surface, changing the soil’s mechanical behavior and stress state significantly. However, there is still a lack of a method to evaluate the change in pile capacity due to excavation. This paper proposes a semi-analytical approach for estimating the change in load-settlement behavior of an uplift pile considering the effects of excavation. A hyperbolic model was adopted to simulate the nonlinear interaction of the pile–soil interface. The nonlinear shear-induced soil displacement outside the pile–soil interface is introduced to obtain a more realistic load-displacement behavior of the uplift pile. An effective iterative program was implemented based on the proposed semi-analytical approach. The comparisons between the results from the proposed methods, well-documented field tests, centrifuge tests, and other analytical methods showed that the proposed approach is suitable for analyzing an uplift pile considering excavation effects. A parametric study was conducted to investigate the effects of main soil properties on the pile capacity loss caused by excavation. The results showed that the soil friction angle and the ratio of the excavation depth to the pile effective length have a great influence on the loss in pile uplift capacity caused by excavation. However, the loss of pile uplift capacity caused by excavation is not affected by the soil’s shear modulus or Poisson’s ratio.