The performance of laterally loaded piles in layered sandy soils under variable degree of saturation

This paper investigates the capacity of a single laterally loaded pile in single- and multi-layered sandy soils under dry, unsaturated and saturated conditions for a wide range of void ratios. Two Linear ariable Differential Transformers (LVDT) were employed to measure lateral displacements. For unsaturated tests, on one layer and two layered sandy soils, suction was controlled using the hanging column technique. Two different suction levels were applied to the soils. The results demonstrated that, the capacity of a single laterally loaded pile in single- and multi-layered sandy soils, under unsaturated conditions, were greater than those in dry and saturated conditions for loose, medium and dense states. Comparison between experimental data for unsaturated tests and several proposed mathematical expressions in the literature for calculating the capacity of a single laterally loaded pile in sandy soils showed a significantly good fit between measured and predicted values of the capacity of the piles where Bishop’s stress is used in the expressions instead of effective stress, confirming the importance of inclusion of suction and degree of saturation in mathematical models when unsaturated conditions of soils were investigated.