Geotechnical behavior of a single pile in sand with varied cross-section geometries and construction techniques

Due to limited investigations that studied the influence of the cross-section geometry on the compression pile resistance, the series of experiments presented in this paper aims to investigate the geotechnical behavior of a single pile in sand with varied the cross-section geometries. In order to achieve this purpose, testing program comprising sex model steel piles with varied cross-section geometries of 20 mm width/diameter was conducted using two construction techniques. The tests are performed on piles with L / D ratios of 10 and 30 installed in the three cases of sand relative density as medium dense and dense sand. Results indicated that pile cross-section geometry has a significant influence on the compressive capacity. Also, for piles having the same diameter, the closed-ended pipe piles have more resistance comparing with the open-ended and conical base pipe piles at all series conditions, while for non-displacement piles with the same width, the square closed-ended pile is a highly effective compared with the square open-ended and tapered piles. Moreover, for jacked piles with L / D of 10 and 30, the compressive capacities of tapered piles with L / D of 10 and 30 in medium dense sand were found to be increased by (9% and 15%) and (15% and 38%) comparing with that of square closed-ended and square open-ended piles, respectively. Furthermore, the results also indicated that the conical base with sixty-degree configuration is the preferred end closure for open-ended pipe piles to provide high performance in the installation process and to achieve load capacity.