Effect of Pile Diameter on Plugging Phenomenon of Open-ended Piles

Abstract

Nowadays deep embedded and large diameter steel pipe piles have been widely used in Japanese port facilities for supporting large vertical load, as growing sizes or changing structural types of port facilities. Estimation for bearing capacity of large diameter and deep embedded piles has been complex problems such that bearing capacity is increased because of deep embedment and plugging effect is decreased because of using large diameter piles. To investigate the inner friction force mechanism development with soil plugging of open-ended piles was the main aim of this study. In this research, open-ended piles with different pile outer diameters were penetrated into dry sand. The plugging situation in the model pile penetration experiment was evaluated from two viewpoints of the plugging phenomenon. As a result, it was found that if the ratio of the wall thickness to the pile diameter is the same, there is not much difference in the degree of plugging due to the pile diameter.