The response and soil pressure distribution around single batter pile under the oblique uplift loading

Abstract

Batter piles often bearing high horizontal resistance and oblique uplift load transformed from the high-rised superstructures and the direction of oblique uplift load changes with the horizontal displacement of the superstructure. However, The working behavior of batter piles under such working condition is less understood. Therefore, a series of laboratory and numerical studies are carried out. A new type of Tactile Pressure Sensor (TPS) is also used to measure the soil pressure around pile. Three major conclusions are summarized form the results. First, the lateral response of the batter pile is affected by the loading angle, while that of the axial response is not. Second, the at rest soil pressure on the batter pile is in the “offset” state, which can be fitted by elliptic function. The pile-soil interaction below a certain depth is not affected by the pile angles and the pile can be designed as the axial uplift pile. The soil stiffness varies within 0.4L and 5D in axial and radial direction of the pile respectively. The increase of pile inclination and loading angle can reduce the stiffness degradation to a certain degree. The findings of this research can support the engineering practice in design of batter piles.