Performance of Under-Reamed Piles in Collapsible Soil

Abstract

One of the Iraqi geotechnical problems is the presence of gypseous soils covering about (27-36) percentage of Iraq soils containing gypsum between (10-70) ratios. The main reason for soil problematic is the gypsum dissolution when these soils are inundated. However, the soluble gypsum can be leached out of the soil particles, so these problems can be led to cracking, tilting, and collapsing the related soil structure and changing the soil properties. The aim of this work is to investigate the performance of under-reamed piles as a new, improved method to reduce the moisture sensitive and the primary triggering mechanism for the volume reduction of collapsible soil, which is considered as a non-elastic deformation; this was done by carrying series of inundation these soil with using different types of under reamed piles to arrive the best and suitable type useful in gypseous soils. The piles with reams are concrete piles with one or more ream, so under-reamed piles are suitable in weak soils where sizable ground movement, variations, filed up ground, silty clay, and loose sand which has the advantage to increase the soil strength. This paper includes the experimental model of under-reamed piles under static load simulated by a steel plate on the pile cap, then the load-settlement curve, friction force, and bearing force founded from the investigation of different patterns of reamed. It was found that a number of bulbs had a significant reduction on settlement reach to 93% in case of using triple under-reamed pile which is the greatest results in comparison with other patterns and reference pile of the uniform cross-section in the wet state.