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Title The Shaft Capacity of Displacement Piles in Clay: A State of the Art Review

Authors(s) Doherty, Paul; Gavin, Kenneth

Publication date 2011-07

Publication information Geotechnical and Geological Engineering, 29 (4): 389-410

Publisher Springer Verlag

Item record/more information http://hdl.handle.net/10197/4171

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Publisher's version (DOI) 10.1007/s10706-010-9389-2

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THE SHAFT CAPACITY OF DISPLACEMENT
PILES IN CLAY – A STATE OF THE ART
REVIEW
Doherty, P. and Gavin, K.

School of Architecture, Landscape and Civil Engineering, University College

Dublin (UCD), Belfield, Dublin, Ireland

Telephone: 00353 1 716 3229

Fax: 00353 1 716 3297
Email: paul.doherty@ucd.ie

ABSTRACT

The rapid expansion of the offshore wind sector, coupled with increasing demand
for high rise structures, has placed renewed demand on the driven piling market.
In light of this industry growth, this paper reviews the evolution of design
approaches for calculating the shaft capacity of displacement piles installed in
cohesive soils. The transition from traditional total stress design towards effective
stress methods is described. Complex stress-strain changes occur during pile
installation, equalisation and load testing and as a consequence, the selection of
parameters for use in conventional earth-pressure type effective stress approaches
is not straight-forward. These problems have led to the development of empirical
correlations between shaft resistance and in-situ tests, such as the cone penetration
tests. However, many of these approaches are limited because they were
developed for specific geological conditions. Significant insight into pile
behaviour has been obtained from recent model pile tests, which included reliable
measurements of radial effective stresses. These tests have allowed factors such as
friction fatigue and interface friction to be included explicitly in design methods.
Whilst analytical methods have been developed to investigate pile response, these
techniques cannot yet fully describe the complete stress-strain history experienced
by driven piles. The use of analytical methods in examining features of pile
behaviour, such as the development of pore pressure during installation and the
effects of pile end geometry on pile capacity, is discussed.

1
Keywords: Foundations, piling, clay, shear strength, instrumentation, field
testing.

List of Symbols

A Pile cross sectional area

API American petroleum institute
CEM Cavity expansion method
COV Coefficient of variation
CPT Cone penetration test
D Pile diameter
E Youngs’ modulus of pile material
Ftip Correction factor for open-ended piles in the NGI approach
G Shear modulus
ICP Imperial college pile
IFR Incremental filling ratio
Ir Rigidity index
K Pile compressibility
Kf Lateral stress coefficient at failure
K0 Lateral stress coefficient at rest
L Pile length
L/D Slenderness ratio
LDPT Large diameter pile tests
Lp Plug length
Ndiss Number of dissipation load cycles
N Number of shearing load cycles
Nund Number of undrained load cycles
2
Nkt Empirical cone strength factor
OCR Over-consolidation ratio
PI Plasticity index
PLR Plug length ratio
Qactual Capacity of a flexible pile
Qc Calculated capacity
Qm Measured capacity
Qrigid Capacity of an infinitely stiff pile
R Radius
Req Equivalent radius
Ri Internal radius
Rf Reduction factor for progressive failure
SPM Strain path method
SPT Standard penetration test
SSPM Shallow strain path method
St Soil sensitivity
YSR Yield stress ratio

fs Cone sleeve friction

h Distance from the pile tip
qc Cone tip resistance
qT Total cone tip resistance
qcnet Net cone resistance
r radial distance from pile shaft
su undrained shear strength
t Pile wall thickness
u Pore pressure
u0 Hydrostatic pore pressure
u2 Pore pressure measured on cone shoulder
z Depth

ΔLp Incremental change in plug length

3
ΔL Incremental change in pile length
Δu Excess pore pressure
Δwres Post-peak displacement required to reach residual strength

α Total stress alpha coefficient

αCPT Empirical total cone factor
β Effective stress beta coefficient
δ Interface friction angle
δr Radial displacement
ξ Degree of strain softening
λ Mean stress lambda coefficient
τav Average shaft shear stress
τf Local shaft shear stress
τpeak Peak shaft shear stress
τres Residual shaft shear stress
σri Total radial stress during installation
σ'ri Radial effective stress during installation
σ'v0 In-situ vertical effective stress
σ'rc Equalised radial effective stress
σ'rf Radial effective stress at failure
ϕcv Constant volume friction angle

4
Introduction

Considerable expansion of the piling industry in recent years has been driven by
the development of high-rise structures and the increased exploitation of offshore
energy resources. These developments bring new challenges for pile designers as
higher capacities and deeper pile penetrations are required in a range of soil types;
For example, from soft normally-consolidated clay (Katzenbach et al. 2000) to
very stiff over-consolidated glacial till in the North sea, where undrained strength
(su) values in excess of 600 kPa are encountered (Overy 2007). Many of the
current state of the art design approaches are based on empirical correlations
established from databases, mainly populated by onshore piles with relatively
small diameters. Therefore, application of these methods to vastly different soil
conditions and pile geometries is questionable. Whilst maintained load tests are
commonly used to confirm the axial capacity of onshore piles, they can be
prohibitively expensive in the offshore environment, particularly when a small
number of piles are used to support the structure (for example in the case of an oil
or gas platform). Accurate predictive models are therefore essential for economic,
efficient and safe foundation design.

This paper reviews the evolution of design practice for estimating the shaft
resistance of piles; from the total stress (alpha) approaches, the first effective
stress (Beta) methods, analytical approaches such as the Strain Path Method
(SPM) and Cavity Expansion Method (CEM) to recent work linking the shaft
resistance developed by displacement piles installed in clay to the results of in-situ
tests such as the Cone Penetration Test (CPT).

The Total Stress Approach

The total stress method remains the most popular approach used in design practice
to estimate the shaft capacity of piles in clay. The basic form of the approach links
the average shaft resistance (av) to the average undrained strength (su) of the clay
along the pile shaft, through an adhesion factor, :

5
  av   su Eqn 1

Tomlinson (1957) recognized that the relationship between av and su was non-
linear, with back-figured  values reducing as the undrained shear strength of the
soil increased (See Figure 1). Many of these initial correlations were developed
from static load tests on un-instrumented piles driven through multiple soil strata
with variable undrained strengths. This resulted in considerable uncertainty in the
estimated alpha coefficient for a given site (Chow 1997).

Many of the improvements to total stress design methods from the 1960’s
onwards, were driven by the rapidly developing offshore oil industry and were
incorporated in design guidelines produced by the American Petroleum Institute
(API) from 1969. These guidelines provide a useful framework for considering
the evolution of total stress methods. McClelland (1974) noted that many of the
lowest  values present in existing databases were mobilized in over-consolidated
soils. They suggested that in deep deposits of normally consolidated clay, such as
those evident in the Gulf of Mexico, the soil may be stiff as a consequence of the
large overburden pressures and in these situations  values approaching unity
could be mobilised on piles founded in soils of high undrained strength. An
alternative approach suggested by McCleeland (1974) was to consider the stress
history or over-consolidation ratio (OCR) of the deposits within the empirical
alpha methods. From the late 1960’s McClelland Engineers accounted for the
influence of OCR indirectly by assuming that the average shaft resistance was
equal to the su value (subject to a maximum value of av  48 kPa), for pile
penetrations less than 30 m in Normally Consolidated (NC) deposits. In
recognition, the first edition of the API design guidelines for offshore piles API-
RP2A (1969) suggested that the local shaft resistance (f) mobilised in NC clay be
linked directly to the initial in-situ vertical effective stress (´vo):

 f  0.33   v' 0 Eqn 2

6
A natural step toward extending the impact of stress history to over-consolidated
(OC) soils was to consider the effect of the in-situ mean stress on the undrained
strength. Given the inherent difficulty in estimating the horizontal effective stress
of OC soils Vijayveriga and Focht (1972) introduced the lambda () coefficient:

f
  Eqn 3
 2su   vo 

Lambda coefficients were back-figured from forty seven load tests performed on
pipe piles with diameters ranging from 155 mm to 762 mm. The inferred  values,
shown in Figure 2, were the first design approach to suggest a length effect, with
 decreasing strongly as the pile penetration depth increased.

Such length effects were in keeping with field data reported by Cooke et al.
(1979) who presented measurements of the shear stress mobilised during the
installation of a 168 mm diameter, closed-ended steel pile in London Clay. The
distribution of shear stress, as the pile was driven to 4.5 m below ground level
(bgl), is shown in Figure 3. It is clear that the shear stress mobilised at any depth
(z) reduced as the pile penetration depth, or slenderness ratio (L/D) increased.
Hereema (1980) introduced the term friction fatigue to describe this facet of
behaviour which is not directly incorporated in either Equation 1 or 2.

Kraft et al. (1981) and Randolph (1983) suggested that progressive failure, which
occurs in strain softening soil, was a possible mechanism controlling friction
fatigue. The onset of progressive failure from the peak (peak) to the residual (res)
shaft resistance is shown in Figure 4. On the basis that strain-softening effects
would be greatest on long compressible piles, Randolph (1983) proposed a
reduction factor (Rf = Qactual/Qrigid) which compares the mobilized resistance
(Qactual) to that of an incompressible pile (Qrigid). The reduction factor incorporates
parameters which describe the degree of softening,  and the pile compressibility,
K:

7
 2
 1 
R f  1  (1   )  1   Eqn 4
 2 K

   res  Eqn 5
peak

 DL2 ( peak ) /  EA  pile

K Eqn 6
wres

Where A is the pile cross sectional area, E is the pile young modulus and Δwres is
the post-peak displacement required to mobilise the residual shaft resistance. τpeak
and τres are the peak and residual shear stress respectively.

A reassessment of Vijayveriga and Focht’s database by Drewey et al. (1977) led

to an updated bi-linear version of the alpha method which was adopted in the
1975 version of the API-RP2A design guidelines in which  reduced from unity
for soft clay to a minimum value of 0.5 for stiff clays (su > 75 kPa). This approach
known as API (1975) is shown in Figure 1 to be similar to the original  methods
proposed by Tomlinson (1957) and others. This new design method resulted in
significantly longer pile lengths in areas such as the Gulf of Mexico and the rigour
of this development was questioned by industry. To address these concerns, the 7th
edition of the API method, published in 1976, reintroduced the original method
(Equation 2) now known as Method 1, as an alternative to the 1975 update, (now
known as Method 2). Method 1 was recommended for high plasticity clays such
as those found in the Gulf of Mexico, whilst Method 2 was suggested for other
types of clay.

The poor reliability of total stress design approaches were discussed by Kraft et al.
(1981) and Morrison (1984). Both studies identified the treatment of strain
softening and stress history as possible contributors to the poor predictive
reliability of the methods. Following the pioneering work of Ladd et al. (1977)
linking the undrained strength ratio (su/´vo) to the Over-Consolidation Ratio
(OCR), parallel studies by Semple and Rigden (1984) and Randolph and Murphy
(1985) determined that the predictive performance of total stress design
8
approaches were significantly improved by considering the undrained strength
ratio. A correlation proposed by Randolph and Murphy (1985) was incorporated
into the API 1987 edition:

0.5
 s   s 
  0.5  u'  for  u'   1
  v0    v0 
0.25
Eqn 7
 su   s 
  0.5  ' 
for  u'   1
  v0    v0 

Semple and Rigden (1984) proposed a similar approach which included

consideration of the pile slenderness (L/D) and is compared to API 1987 in Figure
5 (wherein linear interpolation can be undertaken for L/D ratios between 50 and
120). Although not explicitly stated in Equation 7, the commentary for the API
1987 method included four recommended approaches for considering length
effects, namely correction factors suggested by Kraft et al. (1981), Randolph and
Murphy (1985), Semple and Rigden (1984) and Murff (1980).

Equation 7 was refined in the API 1993 edition where f is given as the larger of:

 f  0.5  ( su   v' 0 )0.5 Eqn 8

 f  0.5  su .75   v' 0 0.25 Eqn 9

Kolk and van der Velde (1996) proposed an updated version of these expressions
which incorporated length effects directly:

0.2
 40 
 f  0.55  su  0.7 ' 0.3
v0   Eqn 10
L D

Recognising that these empirical correlations were developed from databases of

relatively short, closed-end piles that are unrepresentative of the large diameter
open-ended piles used offshore, prompted the UK Department of Energy to
instigate the Large Diameter Pile Test (LDPT) research project. This research
project, which was jointly funded with industry, involved the installation of two
9
762 mm diameter, open-ended driven steel piles. The first was installed to a final
penetration length of 30 m in over-consolidated clay at Tillbrook Grange, and the
second was installed to 55 m in normally consolidated, silty-clay at Pentre. Hobbs
(1993) reported that the alpha value of 0.43 predicted using the API methods at
Tillbrook Grange compared well with the measured value of 0.4. However, in the
low plasticity silty clay at Pentre, the predicted value of 0.95 was a gross over-
estimate of the measured alpha value of 0.62.

The Norwegian Geotechnical Institute (NGI) instigated a research programme

described by Karlsrud et al (1993) in which instrumented piles were installed at
Pentre, and two Norwegian test sites; a silty clay deposit at Lierstranda and a soft
clay deposit at Onsoy. The piles which were 219 mm diameter closed-ended piles
and open-ended piles with an external diameter of 812 mm, were driven to final
penetration depths ranging from 15 m to 37.5 m. The tests showed that the piles
installed in low plasticity clays developed very low horizontal effective stresses
(and therefore low alpha values). The authors presented new design lines shown
in Figure 6, which were comparable to the API (1993) approach when the
Plasticity Index (PI) exceeded 20%. However, for lower PI clay, the proposed
alpha values were offset below the API design line.

Karlsrud et al (2005) described the further development of this design method

known as NGI-99:

For su/σ'v0<0.25:   0.32  PI  10 0.3 Eqn 11

For su/ σ'v0>1.0:   0.5  su  v' 0 

0.3
 Ftip Eqn 12

The approach shown graphically in Figure 7 assumes a constant alpha value

which depends on PI for su/vo < 0.25, a log-linear variation for su/vo up to 1,
whilst for higher su/vo > 1, a correction factor Ftip is applied to reduce the shaft
friction developed on open-ended piles.

Many of the total stress methods discussed above suggest that no distinction exists
between the shaft resistance developed by closed and open-ended piles installed in

10
clay. During installation of open-ended piles, soil freely enters the inside of the
pile, where initially the soil level inside the pile is the same as the external ground
level and the pile is said to be fully coring. As installation continues, high internal
shear stresses can develop near the tip of the pile. These shear stresses can act to
resist free movement of soil into the pile and result in partial or full plugging
occurring. The degree of plugging is quantified through the Plug Length Ratio
(PLR) or the Incremental Filling Ratio (IFR), which incorporates the plug length
(Lp) and incremental change in plug length (Lp), respectively.

PLR  Lp / L Eqn 13

IFR  Lp / L Eqn 14

Gavin and Lehane (2003) and Foye et al. (2009) demonstrated experimentally that
plugging increased the shaft resistance of piles installed in sand and proposed
correlations between shaft resistance and IFR which have been incorporated into
design practice. Karlsrud and Haugen (1981) performed field tests in which they
compared the axial resistance developed during installation of open-ended and
closed-ended piles. The 153 mm diameter model piles (the open-ended pile had a
wall thickness of 4.5 mm) were jacked into over-consolidated clay. They
compared the shaft resistance mobilised by the pile and the plugging records and
found measured changes in the average shaft resistance developed by the open-
ended pile were not well correlated to either PLR or IFR.

Miller and Lutenegger (1997) investigated the effect of pile plugging on the av
values developed during field load tests performed on open and closed-ended
model piles driven or jacked into over-consolidated clay. Consideration of their
data in Figure 8 shows that  values mobilised by these piles depended on the
mode of installation, with jacked piles developing much higher av values. In
contrast to the findings of Karlsrud and Haugen (1981), the degree of plugging
experienced (quantified through PLR) strongly influenced the mobilised shaft
resistance, with  increasing linearly as PLR reduced. This effect was much
more significant for jacked in place piles.
11
Summary of total stress approaches

Despite a number of significant contributions being made to the literature on total

stress design methods, many of these approaches have a number of inherent
drawbacks. Soil behaviour is, of course, governed by effective stresses and
complex stress-strain changes occur during the installation of displacement piles
which cannot be completely described using the initial undrained strength profile.
In addition, the location of the failure surface on which the shear resistance
develops during pile loading will depend on the interface roughness, and at least
for steel piles, some consideration of the interface friction angle which controls
the shear resistance at the soil-steel interface is required. The effects of pile length
and stress history are considered in some of the methods (see Table 1). However,
a significant drawback in applying any empirical formulation is the extension of
such methods to design situations which are outside the scope of the database
used to derive the approach. One such problem which arises is the extrapolation of
the results from relatively small pile tests to the much larger (and more heavily
loaded) piles. This is illustrated in Figure 9, which compares the ultimate load
developed by the piles in the database compiled by Semple and Rigden (1984)
and the large diameter piles tests (LDPT) with the range of capacities required for
offshore piles (Schneider et al, 2007). In addition, extrapolation of some total
stress methods to consider soils which are significantly different from the deposits
used to calibrate the design approach, such as the soft clay in the Gulf of Mexico,
or silty deposits (e.g. Lierstranda) result in poor predictions of pile capacity.

Beta Methods

In an attempt to overcome many of the drawbacks associated with total stress

design approaches, Burland (1973) advocated an effective stress design approach.
In Burlands’ method f, which is controlled by the radial effective stress at failure
rf, and the interface friction angle, , is linked to vo through an empirical
parameter :

12
 f   rf' tan  Eqn 15
 f  K f  v' 0 tan  Eqn 16
  K f tan  Eqn 17

Assuming that the radial stress coefficient at failure equals the at rest radial stress
coefficient, i.e. that Kf = K0, and that  = cv (the constant volume friction angle),
the  value for normally consolidated soils is given as:
   NC  (1  sin cv' ) tan  Eqn 18

Interestingly, Burlands’ original method was formulated from load tests on bored
piles but has since received widespread use for designing driven piles. For
example, Pelletier & Doyle (1982) showed the method provided the best
prediction of the capacity of a 762mm diameter pipe pile driven 80m into stiff
clay with interbedded sand lenses.

Meyerhof (1976) incorporated the Over-consolidation Ratio (OCR) and extended

Burlands’ method to overconsolidated clay:

 OC  (1.5  0.5)  NC OCR Eqn 19

Based on databases of field load tests both Meyerhof (1976) and Flaate and Selnes
(1977) noted a tendency for  to reduce with increasing pile penetration, leading
the latter to suggest an empirical length correction factor of the form:

L  20
  (0.4  0.1)   OCR 0.5 Eqn 20
2 L  20

Using the database compiled by Semple and Rigden (1984), Burland (1993)
suggested that the degree of over-consolidation could be considered through the
undrained strength ratio (See Figure 10) with  increasing from 0.2 for normally
consolidated to lightly over-consolidated soil (su/v0  0.4) to 0.5 for heavily
over-consolidated soils (su/v0 1.0). The data was re-evaluated by Burland in

13
Figure 11 which shows that  is a linear function of the undrained strength ratio,
although notably no length effect was included. It should be noted however, that
the development of a reliable effective stress approach at this time was hampered
by the dearth of pile test data that included reliable pore pressure and radial stress
measurements.

Methods correlating shaft resistance to CPT test

results

A large number of semi-empirical design methods linking the shaft resistance

developed by displacement piles to in-situ test data have been proposed (Powell et
al, 2001). The Cone Penetration Test (CPT) is ideally suited to the development
of such correlations as it has the following advantages: (i) The installation
procedure of the cone is analogous to pile penetration, (ii) The high logging rate
of cone end resistance, pore pressure and sleeve friction results in the collection of
significant data regarding stratigraphic changes and (iii) The data, unlike
alternatives such as SPT blowcounts, is not operator dependent. These advantages
have made CPT based design approaches very attractive to industry (Poulos et al.
2001).

CPT methods have been developed which link f to the friction sleeve
measurement (fs), the pore pressure (u) or the cone tip resistance (qc). One of the
earliest CPT design methods was the Schmertmann and Nottingham approach.
This method, which related shaft resistance directly to CPT sleeve friction, was
based on the work of Nottingham (1975) and Schmertmann (1978):

τf = fs fs Eqn 21

fs is a reduction factor which is dependent on pile shape, pile material, cone type
and embedment ratio and ranges from 0.2 to 1.25. The maximum shaft resistance
is limited to 120 kPa.

14
Based on piling experience in the North Sea, DeRuiter and Beringen (1979)
proposed a design approach known as the European method, which followed the
traditional total stress framework, relating the shaft shear stress to the undrained
strength through an adhesion factor, α (τf =α.su ). However, in this instance the
undrained shear strength was determined using a cone factor, Nkt such that
su=qc/Nkt. The cone factor ranged from 15-20 depending on local experience.
Despite moves in traditional total stress approaches towards relatively complex
relationships between α and soil strength and/or OCR, DeRuiter and Beringen
assumed unique values of α = 1 for normally and α = 0.5 for over-consolidated
soils, respectively. The European method mirrors the Schmertmann and
Nottingham approach by imposed an upper limit of 120 kPa on the shaft shear
stress. It has been suggested that limiting the shaft shear stress reflects an overall
reduction in the mobilised stress along the shaft with increasing penetration and is
therefore an implicit method of imposing a length effect on the calculated shaft
resistance. Interestingly, neither of these methods incorporated an explicit length
correction. Poulos et al. (2001) noted that the reason for high OCR values is due
to high lateral stresses in the soil at shallow depths, which can give rise to
corresponding high shaft shear stresses near the ground surface. However, as the
OCR decreases with depth a parallel decrease in shaft friction can occur. On this
basis the limiting shaft friction can only be ignored by adopting a CPT based
correlation that explicitly considers the impact of stress history and the
corresponding change in shaft friction with depth. Another source of potential
uncertainty associated with this application of the European method is the choice
of a site specific cone factor.

Tumay and Fakhroo (1981) compiled data from tests performed on piles installed
in Louisiana Clay which they used to propose a correlation between f and fs
which maintained the same general form as the Schmertman and Nottingham
method (Eqn 21). The reduction factor fs was given as:

fs = 0.5 + 9.5e-0.09fs Eqn 22

The limiting shaft resistance used in this approach is 60 kPa which reflects the
relatively low strength of the material used to develop the correlation. This led to

15
the method providing conservative predictions of the capacity of piles installed in
over-consolidated clay at Tilbrook Grange (Clarke et al. 1993).

The LCPC method was developed from a comprehensive database of 197 full
scale load tests, which were conducted at 48 sites (Bustamante and Gianeselli,
1982). Whilst a range of pile types were considered in the database, the tests were
predominantly performed on bored and driven piles. The pile diameters ranged
from 110 mm to 1500 mm and the lengths varied from to 6 m to 45 m. The
ground conditions varied widely across the dataset and included clays, silts, sands,
gravels and weathered rock. The LCPC method relates the unit shaft friction
mobilised on the pile to the cone tip resistance (qc) through a normalising
reduction factor, termed αCPT:

qc
f  Eqn 23
CPT

The magnitude of the reduction factor is dependent on the material and pile type
and varies from 30 to 120 for driven piles in soft to stiff clay, respectively The
method adopts limiting shaft friction values of 15 kPa for soft clays and 35 kPa
for stiff clays. Although these limiting values have been shown to be too
conservative at some test sites, in a comparison of the predictive reliability of a
number of design methods, Briaud and Tucker (1988) found that the LCPC
method outperformed the other design methods considered. The methods
relatively good performance is probably a result of the use of wide range of a soil
types in the derivation of the empirical constants.

More recently, Almeida (1996) proposed a CPT based design approach that relied
on more accurate piezocone measurements, which allow correction of the cone tip
resistance for pore pressures acting on the cone shoulder (qT). A direct
relationship between τf and the net cone resistance (qcnet = qT-σv0) was developed
from a database of 43 load tests at eight clay sites. The soil conditions at the test
sites ranged from soft normally consolidated clay at Lierstranda to stiff heavily
over-consolidated clay at Tilbrook. The empirical αCPT parameter relating the net

16
cone resistance to the shaft stress is calculated from the normalised cone
resistance (Q=qcnet/σ’v0):

qc net
f  Eqn 24
CPT

 qcnet 
CPT  11.8  14 log   Eqn 25
  
vo 

While no length effect was considered directly in the design formula, Almeida
(1996) noted that the database contained limited information for piles with high
slenderness ratios and suggested using the reduction factor proposed by Semple
and Rigden (1984) for piles with L/D greater than 60.

Eslami and Fellenius (1997) proposed a CPT method, which used both the pore
pressure measured at the cone shoulder (u2) and the total cone end resistance (qT),
to estimate shaft resistance from the effective cone resistance, qE.

τf =Cs.qE Eqn 26

qE=qT-u2 Eqn 27

The empirical parameter Cs was shown to vary from 0.08 to 0.25 for soft to stiff
clay. The method proposed by Eslami and Fellenius (1997) was based on 104 case
histories across a broad variety of site conditions from very stiff clay/mudstone at
a Japanese site (Matsumoto et al. 1995) to very soft Norwegian clays (Almeida et
al. 1996). The broad geological and geographical spread of this database probably
contributes to the good predictive performance across a range of site conditions
(Cai et al, 2009).

17
 Summary of CPT based approaches

A brief summary of the CPT methods which are used in design practice was
presented. Since the CPT test is in essence a miniature pile, correlations between
cone resistance and shaft resistance show great promise. However, a number of
caveats should be considered before the empirical design approaches reviewed
above are used in design practice:

(i) Many of the methods were developed and calibrated over twenty years ago.
Modern electric cones provide significantly more reliable cone profiles.

(ii) The methods tend to be derived for specific regions and their application to more
widespread geological profiles needs to be carefully considered. Extension of
these methods to conditions that are significantly different to those on which they
were calibrated is questionable.

(iii) Many deal with friction fatigue effects indirectly through the inclusion of limiting
maximum shaft friction values. This tends to result in over-conservatism.

(iv) The European method uses the cone data to determine an undrained strength
profile and is essentially a total stress method with many of the problems inherent
in such approaches.

(v) Many of the pile tests used in the databases did not measure local friction and
pore pressure values, the absence of which preclude thorough understanding of
the effective stress conditions controlling pile behaviour.

Enhanced understanding of pile behaviour from

instrumented pile tests

Randolph (2003) noted that any scientific approach to determining the shaft
resistance of a displacement pile should consider the complex stress-strain history

18
experienced, which includes; the initial in-situ condition, pile installation,
equalisation and loading (See Figure 12). Given the dearth of such information in
the database of field tests used to develop total stress design approaches, a number
of leading geotechnical research institutes including NGI (Karlsud and Haugen
1985), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Morrison 1984), Oxford University
(Coop 1987) and Imperial College London independently initiated programmes of
field testing using instrumented piles. The research conducted at Imperial College,
employed the heavily instrumented Imperial College Pile (ICP) which was
installed in a wide range of clay types (See Table 2). The ICP contained total
stress, porewater pressure and shear stress transducers at a number of locations on
the pile shaft identified by their distance from the pile tip (h) normalised by the
pile diameter (D). The particular advantage of the ICP was that by simultaneously
measuring radial stress (r), porewater pressure (u) and local shear stress (f), the
development of shaft resistance during installation, equalisation and loading could
be considered in a fundamental manner using stress paths measured in radial
effective stress - shear stress space. In addition, load cells allowed the distribution
of residual load on the pile to be determined. Many of the load tests used in the
derivation of empirical design approaches ignored the presence of residual loads,
with the consequence that the inferred shear stress distributions were most likely
incorrect. Fellenius et al. (2004) clearly demonstrated the effect of ignoring
residual load effects when considering the load distribution measured on a closed-
ended pile driven into soft compressible clay.

Lehane and Jardine (1994b) reported data from the ICP installation into lightly
over-consolidated marine clay at Bothkennar (See Figure 13). They demonstrated
that during jacked installation of the ICP, the end bearing resistance (qb)
mobilised during each jacking stroke was approximately equal to the CPT qc end
resistance at that depth. The shape of the radial total stress (ri) profiles mirrored
the qb profile suggesting that ri was controlled by the soil state. Friction fatigue
was evident with ri reducing as h/D increased from 4 to 14. Although the ICP
contained an additional radial stress sensor at h/D = 25, the readings at this sensor
level during pile installation at Bothkennar were virtually indistinguishable from
those at h/D = 14. The normalised radial total stresses developed at Bothkennar

19
are compared to those mobilised in over-consolidated glacial till deposits at
Cowden and heavily over-consolidated London Clay in Figure 14. Whilst friction
fatigue is evident at all sites (where ri/qc values were seen to decrease as h/D
increased), it is clear that the effects are more pronounced for the heavily over-
consolidated clays. By contrast, Chow (1997) found that the ri/qc profile
developed during installation of the ICP into two sand deposits, a loose to medium
dense dune sand at Labenne, and dense sand at Dunkirk, was unique and did not
depend on soil state.

Noting the lack of a unique direct correlation between ri/qc and h/D for the three
clay sites at which the ICP was installed, Lehane (1992) observed that the
normalised radial total stress developed during installation of the ICP (See Figure
14) increased in proportion to the over-consolidation ratio (OCR). He compiled a
database of high quality instrumented pile tests which included data from the ICP
tests and nine other sites (including tests performed by NGI, MIT and Oxford).
Based on this database Lehane proposed the following best fit expression to
describe the radial total stress parameter, Hi:

Hi 
 ri  uo   3.92 OCR 0.41 (h / R) 0.2 Eqn 28
 vo

A feature of all the ICP pile tests was that during pore pressure equalisation,
relaxation of the radial total stress set-up during installation occurred. This
reduction was quantified using the relaxation coefficient Kc/Hi:

K c  rc  uo 
 Eqn 29
Hi  ri  u0

The equalised radial effective stresses (rc) mobilised on the ICP were seen to
exhibit a similar dependence on OCR as seen for installation radial total stresses
(See Figure 15), with the effective stress offset by an amount which Lehane
(1992) suggested was controlled by the clay sensitivity (St). The rc values could
thus be described using a conventional earth pressure approach with a correlation
originally proposed by Lehane (1992) being updated by Chow (1997):
20
 rc'  K c v' 0 Eqn 30
K c  2.2  0.016 YSR  0.87 log 10 S t YSR 0.42 h / R 0.2 Eqn 31

The radial effective stress regime surrounding a displacement pile depends on the
soil yield stress ratio, sensitivity and the geometric (h/R) term, which accounts for
the effects of friction fatigue in reducing the radial effective stress. The yield
stress ratio (YSR), (which is the ratio of effective vertical yield stress to the in-situ
vertical effective stress) was suggested as a more comprehensive measure of the
stress history by Jardine et al (2005). All correlations produced by Chow (1997)
replaced the OCR term with YSR as shown in Equation 31.

Chow (1997) considered many possible mechanisms which could contribute to

friction fatigue including (i) heave – with upward soil displacements resulting
from pile installation causing a reduction in radial stress, (ii) pile whip – in which
lateral movement of the pile head results in loss of contact between the pile wall
and the surrounding soil, (iii) stress concentration at the pile tip caused by the
large end bearing resistance generated during pile installation and (iv) the effects
of extreme cyclic loading. Whilst mechanism (i) and (ii) would affect the radial
effective stress profile at relatively shallow pile penetrations, (iii) and (iv) are
likely to be dominant for typical pile geometries.

Coop and Wroth (1989) presented measurements of r made during the

installation of the Oxford University Instrumented Model Pile (IMP) in Over-
Consolidated Clay at Huntspill. The IMP had sensors at two locations and they
noted an h/R effect which they attributed to reconsolidation occurring during the
10 minute time lag required for the trailing transducer to reach a given depth.
Randolph (2003) argued that pore pressure dissipation which occurred during
installation of the ICP was at least partly responsible for the reduction in ri/qc
with increasing h/D, noted in Figure 14.

Measurements of the normalised excess porewater pressure (u/su) mobilised

during the installation of the LDPT piles into lightly over-consolidated silty clay
at Pentre and in heavily over-consolidated clay at Tilbrook Grange are shown in
21
Figure 16a and 16b respectively. Data from both sites include u values measured
by sensors on the pile shaft and by piezometers embedded in the soil at radial
distance (r) of 1 m and 2 m from the pile shaft. The measurements are plotted
against normalised distance from the pile tip, with negative h/D values indicating
that the pile tip is above the piezometer level. The following trends are
noteworthy:

(i) At both sites the maximum u/su was recorded as the pile tip
passed at or close to the sensor (within the region h/D = 0 to h/D =
3).
(ii) The normalised increase in porewater pressure u/su was much
greater (approximately double) in the low YSR soil. This is
compatible with high measurements of radial total stress mobilised
during pile installation at other low YSR soils such as Bothkennar
and Belfast Sleech (Gavin et al. 2010), where despite radial
effective stress (ri) values approaching zero during installation,
the generation of large excess pore pressures resulted in high
normalised ri/qc values (where ri = ri+ u0 + u )
(iii) Values of u/su reduced rapidly as the h/D value increased to h/D =
10, thereafter the rate of reduction slowed considerably. This rapid
reduction of u/su as the highly stressed pile base passes, suggests
that the relatively high rates of friction fatigue noted for ri values
measured during installation of the ICP, may have resulted from
unloading as the distance to the pile base increased to 10 pile
diameters.
(iv) For h/D values in excess of 10, the rate of reduction of excess
porewater pressures slowed considerably, with the time for
consolidation being controlled by the pile diameter and
permeability of the soil.

Bond (1989) compared the axial capacity of the ICP when driven or jacked into
the London Clay at Canons Park. During driving, the pile was subjected to 4500
rapid undrained load cycles (Nund). The standard installation procedure adopted
for the ICP tests, wherein the pile was jacked in 200 mm jacking strokes resulted
22
in 20 installation load cycles at Canons Park. Despite the extreme range of
installation load cycles applied, the piles developed similar axial load capacities
following equalisation.

Lehane (1992) investigated the effect of the number of installation load cycles on
the normalised radial effective stresses (ri/qc) developed during installation of
the ICP, See Figure 17). At each test site, the 102 mm diameter closed ended pile
was installed using a 200 mm jacking stroke, which caused a minimum of two
installation load cycles for the sensor nearest the pile tip (h/D = 4) and a
maximum of twelve load cycles at h/D = 25. The data suggests that much higher
normalised radial effective stresses were mobilised in the high YSR soils at
Canons Park and Cowden (with values approaching 25% of the CPT qc resistance
near the pile tip). It is possible that the much higher installation effective stresses
developed in these soils resulted in more pronounced cyclic shearing effects, and
consequently friction fatigue was also much greater for these high YSR soils.

Chow (1997) varied the jacking stroke length used to install the ICP at Pentre in
order to consider a wider range in the number of installation load cycles. In
addition to the standard undrained load cycles Nund experienced during ICP
installation, she considered load cycles where partial dissipation of the excess
porewater pressure (termed Ndiss cycles) was allowed to occur in the highly
laminated silty clay at Pentre. Chow found that the rc values mobilised were
relatively unaffected by the number of undrained load cycles. In contrast, the
number of dissipation cycles had a more significant effect, with rc reducing as
Ndiss increased, as shown by Figure 18.

Xu et al. (2006) reported radial total stress and pore pressure measurements made
during the fast monotonic vibratory installation of 1.02 m diameter steel tubes to
depths of 12 m and 13.5 m in soft clay. She noted a clear tendency for both r and
u values to decrease as h/D increased. In this case friction fatigue was evident in
the absence of any shearing or dissipation load cycles which suggests that the
proximity of the pile base is an important feature of observed friction fatigue.

23
Gavin et al. (2010) presented the results of a series of field experiments performed
to study the effect of installation method on the shaft resistance developed by a
pile installed in soft silty clay. A series of tests were performed on piles which
experienced different levels of cyclic loading during installation. The test results
indicated that the radial total stress, pore water pressure and shear stress on the
pile shaft during installation, were strongly affected by the installation procedure;
all three were found to increase when the jacking stoke length used during
installation increased (or the number of cyclic load applications decreased). The
dominant feature which caused large stress increases during installation were the
relatively high pore pressures developed during the installation of the pile into soft
clay. These excess porewater pressures which set-up during installation, exhibited
friction fatigue which could be explained by partial dissipation of excess
porewater pressure which occurred as points remote from the pile tip experienced
unloading as the distance from the pile tip increased. An interesting finding from
these experiments was that despite the significant effect of installation method on
the installation resistance of the piles, the equalised radial effective stresses
measured after the dissipation of excess porewater pressure were found to be
insensitive to the installation method and all piles mobilised similar shaft
resistance when load tested.

Doherty and Gavin (2009 and 2010) reported tests where open-ended and closed-
ended piles were installed in soft clay. They found that the pile base resistance,
radial total stress and pore pressure recorded at the pile shaft were significantly
affected by the degree of plugging experienced during open-ended pile
installation. However, because increases in radial total stress mirrored increases in
porewater pressure, radial effective stresses and therefore shaft resistance were
unaffected by the degree of plugging. The authors noted that the relatively high
pore pressures mobilised during pile installation in the soft clay may have
constrained volume change in the interface shear zone during pile installation.

Analytical methods for assessing pile behaviour

Analytical approaches which have been developed to predict pile behaviour

include the Cavity Expansion Method (CEM) and Strain Path Method (SPM). In

24
the CEM method, pile installation is simulated by expanding a cylindrical cavity
in a soil mass (with a volume equal to that of the pile). See Kirby and Esrig (1979)
and Randolph et al. (1979). During undrained installation, the radial displacement
r, at a distance r from the centre of a closed-ended pile with a radius R is given
by:
2
r r r
 1    Eqn 32
R R R

Because this one-dimensional approach ignores vertical deformations, shearing

around the pile tip, and the influence of the ground surface, it does not properly
model the complex strain histories of elements close to the shaft of displacement
piles. It therefore provides poor estimates of shaft stress (Xu et al 2006).
However, Lehane and Gill (2004) show that it provides reasonable predictions of
radial displacement. The stresses developed during cavity expansion can be
predicted using closed form solutions (Butterfield and Bannerjee 1970 and
Randolph and Wroth 1979) or through FEM solutions (Randolph et al 1979 and
Whittle 1987). The excess pore pressure u can be estimated from the shear
modulus, G and undrained strength (Gibson and Anderson 1961):
u G r
 ln  Eqn 33
su su R

Although G is a strain dependent parameter, Randolph (2003) suggests that for

lightly over-consolidated clay, the maximum pore water pressure at the pile-soil
interface is in the range 4-6 su. This expression has been shown to provide
reasonable predictions for u values measured during instrumented pile tests in
soft clay (McCabe 2002 and Doherty 2010).

The Strain Path Method (SPM) considers a two-dimensional strain field caused by
pile installation which is modelled as the flow of an ideal fluid around the tip
(Baligh 1985, 1986). The resulting flow streamlines are used to determine strain
paths, with stresses obtained by employing a suitable constitutive model. When
compared with the CEM approach, the SPM method which is described in detail

25
by Lehane (1992) provides improved predictions of the soil response in the region
of the pile shaft.

Azzouz and Morrison (1988) compared measurements of the radial total stress
measured during installation of a model pile, referred to as the piezo lateral stress
(PLS) cell, in Empire Clay, with predictions using both CEM and SPM methods.
The CEM approach was applied using the Modified Cam Clay (MCC) model, the
SPM method was also applied with the MIT-E2 model. The authors concluded
that no method provided consistently good predictions, and the predictive
performance was highly dependent on the soil model chosen. In discussing the
relative performance of both approaches, Jardine (1985) and Bond (1989) noted
that the 2D nature of the SPM model was required to properly model the friction
fatigue phenomenon noted in their field tests using the ICP. This is illustrated in
Figure 14, in which SPM predictions of the normalised radial total stress at
Bothkennar are compared to measured values from the ICP installation. Whilst the
SPM method over-predicts the mobilised stresses, critically it captures the rapid
decay in stress in the vicinity of the pile tip.

Chin (1986) used the SPM method to investigate difference between the strains
caused by both closed and open-ended pile installation. The open-ended pile
geometry modelled was typical of an offshore pile with a pile diameter, D to wall
thickness t, D/t ratio of forty. Comparisons of the Octahedral Shear Strains
developed by the piles, illustrated in Figure 19, shows that the strains are
comparable when the equivalent radius Req factor is used to normalise the open-
ended pile measurements.

2
Req  R 2  Ri Eqn 34

Where Ri is the internal radius of the open-ended pile.

On this basis, Chow (1997) suggested that the Imperial College design approach
for piles in clay, which was originally developed from the results of closed-ended
pile tests, could be extended to open-ended piles by substituting Req for R:

26
K c  2.2  0.016 YSR  0.87 log 10 S t YSR 0.42 h / Req
0.2
Eqn 35

Sagaseta and Whittle (2001) provided an updated SPM model known as the
Shallow Strain Path Method (SSPM) which accounts for ground surface effects on
the stress and strain response during initial penetration of the pile. In the SSPM
method the radial displacements are predicted from:

R 2  L 

r  Eqn 36
2  r r 2  L2 
 

Xu et al. (2006) compared the radial displacements measured during the

installation of a 1 m diameter open-ended pile in soft clay, with those predicted
using both CEM and SSPM methods. Measurements taken from inclinometer
tubes at radial distances of 2 radii and 7 radii from the pile shaft, when the pile tip
depth was 9 m bgl are compared to predicted values in Figure 20. The CEM
method estimates a constant r profile, which unlike the measured profile, is
independent of the position of the pile tip and generally overestimates soil
movement. By contrast, the SSPM method provides much more realistic
predictions, although it fails to capture the large increase in r, measured at R = 2
radii, at a depth of 4.5m.

Randolph (2003) proposed a simple generalized form of the cavity expansion

method for determining the radial effective stress acting on the pile shaft both
immediately after installation and following complete consolidation.

1 su  1  1  2K0 '
 ri  u0   1    v 0  su ln   I r  Eqn 37
St tan  r  St  3

where the first component on the right hand side represents the initial pore
pressure, u0, the second reflects the external radial effective stress, 'ri, the third
accounts for shear induced excess pore pressure and the fourth is the expansion
induced excess pore pressure.  is the area ratio of the pile, which for a fully
coring pile is approximately 4t/D, whilst for a fully plugged or closed-ended pile
is one. The rigidity index, Ir, is the ratio of the shear modulus to the shear strength

27
(i.e. G/su). This method is therefore the first to explicitly consider the transition
from fully coring to fully plugged installation for open-ended piles.

Following consolidation, the equalized radial effective stress can be estimated

from the earth pressure coefficient Kc:

 rc'  ri' YSR   ui 

Kc    ln 1  '  Eqn 38
 v0  v0
' '
  YSR  v 0 

Randolph (2003) suggested values of 1 and 5 respectively for the empirical

parameters  and  in order to match radial effective stresses profiles on the ICP
reported by Chow (1997). Chen and Randolph (2007) showed that this approach
provided a slight over-prediction of the external radial stress changes during
suction caisson installation in centrifuge model tests. However, it predicted
reasonable estimates of the external shaft friction following complete
equalization, although under-predicting the result for the sensitive clay (Chen and
Randolph, 2007). The method was applied to predict the radial total stress,
porewater pressure and radial effective stress mobilized during installation of the
NGI closed-ended test pile at Haga (See Figure 21), where it is seen to provide
reasonable estimates of values measured near the pile tip at a depth of 5m.
However, at points remote from the pile tip, the stresses are overestimated.

Discussion

McClelland et al. (1969) noted that the evolution of pile design was based on
“judgement, intuition and fragments of experience”. Forty years on and this
observation could still be said to hold true. Advances in analytical approaches
such as CEM and SSPM methods and semi-empirical design methods correlated
to extensive experimental programmes such as the IC-05 design approach are
welcome steps towards more rational design methods. Many of the advances were
obtained through the use of instrumented model piles which measured the radial
effective stresses during the complete stress history of the pile. However,
Randolph (2003) demonstrated the gap between analytical predictions and
experimental observation and uncertainty remains in a number of key areas
28
including; (i) the reliability of existing predictive methods, (ii) the effect of
friction fatigue, (iii) the relative resistance of open and closed ended piles and (iv)
the effect of loading rate on the measured shaft resistance.

The API total stress design method remains the industry standard although the
Imperial College (IC-05) approach is gaining significant traction with Overy and
Sayer (2007) demonstrating its predictive reliability. Jardine et al. (2005)
compiled a database of load tests on piles in clay and compared the predictive
capability of IC-05 and API-93. The results (See Table 3) revealed that the IC
method was significantly more reliable than API with a mean value of the
predicted to measured resistance (Qc/Qm) 1.03 for IC-05 compared to 0.85 for the
API. In addition, lower scatter was observed around the IC-05 predictions,
demonstrated by the lower COV (coefficient of variation = standard
deviation/mean) in Table 3. Significantly, several sources of bias where noted for
the API approach, with the ratio Qc/Qm increasing with pile slenderness (L/D)
resulting in capacity estimates being conservative for short piles and being
unconservative for long piles. In addition, a bias with respect to OCR was
observed with the API method generally over-predicting the resistance of
normally consolidated deposits and being over-conservative in heavily over-
consolidated deposits. These observations suggest that the evolution of the API
approach to include the effects of stress history and friction fatigue were
unsuccessful .

Clausen and Aas (2001) produced an independent review of the IC-05 and API
methods, and found that whilst the IC method provided a marginally more
accurate mean prediction of the shaft resistance than the API, the COV was much
higher than those reported by Jardine et al. (2005), See Table 3. They found that
the IC-05 method over-estimated the resistance developed in low plasticity clays
with low OCR values. When these soils were excluded from the database, the
variability of both the API and IC methods decreased substantially and both
methods were conservative (with Qc/Qm < 1). Ridgeway and Jardine (2007)
identified a range of ‘problem’ clays whose capacity was over-predicted using the
IC-05 method. These were predominantly low plasticity clay, which were
characterised by low cone resistance and skin friction values measured using the

29
CPTu. The resistance of piles at these ‘problem’ sites was also poorly predicted
using the API approach, with the NGI method offering the only reasonable
predictions by explicitly considering the plasticity index.

Jardine and Chow (2007) recommend that the key input parameters required for
the successful application of the IC design approach are (i) site specific
measurements of the interface friction angle , (ii) information on the soil
sensitivity and (iii) a reliable profile of OCR. The importance of accurate
measurement of  was highlighted by Salvidar and Jardine (2005) who report
predictions of the shaft resistance of piles installed in Mexico City clay, which has
a plasticity index (PI) of 160%. Ring shear tests on the clay revealed an unusually
high  value of 36°. Using existing empirical correlations between  and PI
(Jardine et al, 2005) would result in a  value of 8-12° for this high plasticity clay.
The difference between the interface friction value inferred from the empirical
correlation and the actual values would result in underestimates of the pile
resistance and excessively long pile lengths would be required (approximately 4
times longer).

The difficulty of using average Qc/Qm statistics to assess the reliability of pile
design methods is illustrated in Figure 22a and Figure 22b, where the shear stress
profiles measured on the LDPT piles installed in Pentre and Tilbrook respectively
are compared to design profiles predicted using IC-05, API-93, NGI-99 and the
LCPC method.

The following can be observed:

(i) The API method overestimated the shear stress profile over the
entire pile length at Pentre and thus overestimated the overall shaft
capacity, whereas at Tillbrook Grange it provided an excellent
prediction of the overall resistance, despite significantly over-
predicting the shaft resistance developed on the upper portion of
the pile shaft and under-predicted the resistance developed near the
pile tip.

30
 (ii) The LCPC method accounts for friction fatigue by introducing a
limiting value of shaft friction which can be developed in a given
deposit. This limiting resistance is seen to grossly under-estimate
the shaft resistance at both sites.
(iii) Whilst the NGI-99 method provided a very good prediction of the
distribution of shear stress at Pentre, the profile predicted at
Tilbrook Grange was very similar to that predicted using the API-
method.
(iv) The IC method produced good overall predictions of the total shaft
resistance at both sites. However, at Pentre, the shear stress profile
was over-predicted near the pile tip and under-estimated along the
remainder of the shaft.

Much of the uncertainty associated with the methods set out above results from
poor treatment of the distribution of shear stress on the pile shaft. Whilst
significant research effort has identified the critical role of volume change in the
interface shear zone during cyclic shearing as a key mechanism controlling
friction fatigue in sand, uncertainties remain as to how to quantify these effects in
clay, where pile size, soil permeability, installation method and soil state are
likely to contribute to friction fatigue. As a result, approaches to deal with this
aspect of behaviour vary from the use of conservative upper bound shaft
resistance values to the use of a geometric reduction factor.

Another feature where design methods differ is in the treatment of possible

differences between the shaft resistance mobilised by open and closed-ended
piles. The API method assumes that there is no difference in shaft resistance for
piles driven in clay, whilst assuming in sand, open-ended piles develop only 80%
of the shaft resistance of a closed-ended pile. The LCPC approach accounts for
pile end condition by using higher reduction factors for low-displacement piles.
The NGI method assumes no difference in the behaviour of piles in normally
consolidated soil and a reduction factor that increases as the degree of over-
consolidation increases. The IC approach includes the same reduction factor
(which assumes that piles are fully coring with IFR = 100%) in all soil types. This

31
reduction factor assumes that friction fatigue occurs at a higher rate for open-
ended than closed-ended piles.

It is worth noting the methods described in this paper were developed to calculate
the static axial shaft capacity of piles in clay. Because of the high cost and
considerable time required to verify the pile capacity using static load tests, the
use of faster and cheaper dynamic load test methods are becoming increasing
popular within industry. It should be remembered that the resistance of the
majority of soils considered herein are rate dependent (Brown et al. 2006). An
example of the effect of loading rate on the pile resistance mobilised during
maintained static loading and constant rate of penetration (CRP) loading of piles
installed in Mexico City Clay are shown in Figure 23, where the higher rate CRP
test procedure resulted in stiffer pile response and over a 50% increase in pile
resistance.

Conclusions

This paper described the evolution of design methods used to calculate the shaft
resistance of displacement piles in clay. Because of their simplicity, total stress
design approaches remain popular in practice. However, the empirical parameters
linking shaft resistance to the undrained strength of the soil are affected by
multiple factors and the treatment of important facets of pile behaviour such as the
effects of stress history and friction fatigue are often contradictory. Analytical
approaches such as CEM and SPPM offer considerable promise. However,
Randolph (2003) noted that some of the aspects of pile behaviour observed in
instrumented pile tests were not modelled by these methods and as result he
suggested some developments to the CEM approach. Until further calibration and
validation of these methods is conducted they are unlikely to be used widely in
industry. It is apparent that additional testing of large diameter, high capacity piles
,where radial effective stresses are measured throughout installation, equalisation
and load-testing, is required in order to address many of the uncertainties that
remain in current pile design methods.

32
Acknowledgments

The first author was funded by a Sustainable Energy Ireland/IRCSET scholarship

and was a recipient of a Geotechnical Society of Ireland award.

33
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40
41
FIGURES

1.0
0.9 Peck(1958)
0.8
Adhesion Factor, α

0.7
0.6 Kerisel(1965)
0.5
0.4
0.3 Tomlinson(1957) API(1975)
0.2
Woodward(1961)
0.1
0.0
0 50 100 150 200
Undrained Strength, s u (kPa)

Figure 1: Early alpha correlations developed from load test databases

Lambda Coefficient, λ
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
0

10

20
Pile Length, L (m)

30

40

50

60

70

80

Figure 2: Lambda Coefficient as a function of Pile Length (reproduced from Vijayvergiya

and Focht, 1972)

42
 Local shear stress, τf (kPa)
0 20 40 60 80 100
0
Pile tip at 1.5m bgl
(L/D=9)
5

Normalised Penetration, z/D

Pile tip at 2.5m bgl
10 (L/D=15)

15 Pile tip at 3.5m bgl

(L/D=21)

20
Pile tip at 4.5m bgl
(L/D=27)
25

30

Figure 3: Friction Fatigue in London Clay (after Cooke et al, 1979)

Displacement Profile

Figure 4: Progressive Failure in a strain softening soil (modified from Kraft, 1981)

43
 1.2
Semple & Rigden

Adhesion Factor, α
1.0
Upper Bound for L/D<50
0.8
API(1987)
0.6

0.4
Semple & Rigden Lower
0.2 Bound for L/D>120
0.0
0.00 1.00 2.00 3.00 4.00

Undrained Strength Ratio, s u/σ'v0

Figure 5: Variation of alpha with undrained strength ratio (after Semple and Rigden, 1984)

NGI-Onsoy
1.2 NGI-Lierstranda
NGI-Pentre
1.0 NGI-Haga
NGI-Tilbrook
Adhesion Factor, α

0.8
LDPT-Tilbrook
LDPT-Pentre

0.6 PI>20%

0.4
PI-15%
0.2 API(1987)
PI-10%
0.0
0.1 1 10

Undrained Strength Ratio, s u/σ'v0

Figure 6: Correlation of alpha parameter with strength ratio for low plasticity clays
(Modified from Karlsrud et al, 1993)

44
 1.0 PI>55%
PI=40%
0.8
PI=30%

Adhesion Factor, α
PI=20%
0.6
PI=15% Closed ended
PI=12%
0.4

PI<10%
0.2 Open ended

0.0
0.1 1 10

Undrained Strength Ratio, s u/σ'v0

Figure 7: NGI-99 Pile Design Method showing influence of soil plasticity (after Karlsrud et
al, 2005)

1.4 Jacked Data

Jacked Trend
1.2
Driven Data
Adhesion Factor, α

1.0 Driven Trend

0.8

0.6

0.4

0.2

0.0
0 40 80 120
Plug Length Ratio, PLR (%)

Figure 8: Relationship between adhesion factor, , and the plug length ratio (PLR) (modified
from Miller and Luttenegger, 1997)

45
 Figure 9: Comparison of API database Capacity (Q) with the range of offshore pile
capacities installed offshore.

Local Shaft Stress, τf (kPa)

0 100 200 300 400
0
In-situ Vertical Effective Stress, σ' v0 (kPa)

's u' /σ'vo = 0.4

100
s u/σ'vo = 1.0
Series2
200 s u/σ'vo > 1.0
Series3

300

400 β=0.5

500

600

700

800
β=0.2 β=0.3
900

Figure 10: Variation in  parameter for different strength ratios (After Burland, 1993)

46
 2

Beta Coefficient, β
1.5

0.5

0
0.00 0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50 3.00 3.50 4.00

Undrained Strength Ratio, s u/ σ'v0

Figure 11: Beta parameter determined by Burland (1993)

σ'vo σ'vi σ'vc σ'vf

σ'ho σ'ri σ'rc σ'rf

In Situ Installation Equilibration Loading

Figure 12: Changes in pile stress regime over time

47
 Stress (kPa)
0 200 400 600 800
0

qc
2

qb
Depth(m)

5
σri at
6 h/D=14
σri at h/D=4
7

Figure 13: Installation total stress at Bothkennar (after Lehane, 1992)

70
Normalised Distance from Pile Base, h/R

60
Cowden Till SPM/MIT-E3 Prediction OCR=2
50 Bothkennar
Clay
40

30

20 London Clay

10

0
0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1

Normalised Installation Total Stress, σri/qb

Figure 14: Relationship between the installation radial total stresses and distance from the
pile tip. (after Lehane and Jardine, 1994)

48
 10 After Installation
( σri -u 0 )/ σ'v0

( σri-u0)/ σ'v0 and σ'rc/ σ'v0

Radial Stress Coefficients

1
After Consolidation
Increasing
Sensitivity σ'rc/ σ'v0

0.1
1 10 100

Yield Stress Ratio

Figure 15: Radial Stress relaxation as a function of soil sensitivity (after Randolph et al,
2003)

(a) Excess Pore Pressure Ratio, Δu/s u (b) Excess Pore Pressure Ratio, Δu/s u
-20 -20
Normalised Distance from Pile Base, h/D

-10 -10
r=1m r=1m

0 1 2 3 4 5 0 0.5 1 1.5 2 2.5 3

0 0

10 10
Shaft
r=2m Measurments
20 20
Shaft
r=2m Measurments
30 30

Figure 16: Normalised Excess Pore Pressures measured in the soil mass and on the pile shaft
at (a) Pentre and (b)Tilbrook respectively

49
 0.25

Normalised radial effective stress

Canons Park

0.2 Cowden
Bothkennar

(σ'ri/qc) 0.15

0.1

0.05

0
0 5 10 15
No. of Load Cycles, N

Figure 17: Impact of shearing cycles on Normalised Effective Stress

3
Fully Equalised Radial Stress

2.5
Coefficient, K c

1.5
Mean Trend

0.5

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30

No. of Dissipation Cycles, Ndiss

Figure 18: Influence of Dissipation Cycles (adapted from Chow, 1996)

50
 OE Strains
Strains for for
OE pile
pile with
with raius RR
radius,
Strains for
Strains for CE
CE pile
pile with
with equivalent
equivalent radius
radius,Req
Req

CL
5
Normalised Distance from Pile Base h/Req

OE Pile 2%
Wall
3

CE Pile 1%
Wall
1

5% 2%

-1 1%

0.5%
-3

0.2%
0.5%
-5
0 2 4 6 8 10
Normalised Radial Distance, R/Req

Figure 19: Strain Contours for an open-ended pile and a solid closed-ended pile of an
equivalent radius calculated using the Strain Path Method (SPM) (adapted from Chin, 1986)

51
 (a) Radial Movement, δr (mm) Radial Movement, δr (mm)
0 30 60 90 120 0 5 10 15 20
0 0

2 2

4 4
Depth(m)

6 6

8 8

10 10
Measured
CEM
12 SSPM 12

14 14

Figure 20: Radial Movements adjacent to an OE Pile Installation at a depth of 9m and (a) 2
radii and (b) 7 radii from the pile (adapted from Xu et al, 2006)

Installation Total Excess Pore Pressures, Equalised Effective

Stress, σri (kPa) Δui (kPa) Stress, σ'rc (kPa)
0 200 400 600 0 200 400 600 0 100 200
0
1
2 Ir =500

3
Depth (m)

4
5
Ir =50
6
7
8 CEM Prediction
9 Measured

Figure 21: CEM Predictions for the NGI instrumented pile tests at Haga

52
(a) (b)
Local Shaft Stress, τf (kPa) Local Shaft Stress, τf (kPa)
0 30 60 90 120 0 200 400 600
0 0
API-93
5
10 Measured
API-93
10
20
Depth (m)

Depth (m)
Measured 15
30
20

40 IC-05
LCPC 25
NGI-99
50
30
LCPC
NGI-99 IC-05
60 35

Figure 22: Comparison of the Measured and Predicted Shaft Shear Stresses for LDPT Pile
Tests at (a) Pentre and (b) Tilbrook

800
STATIC M AINTAINED
2 CRP LOAD TEST
600 TESTS
Load (kN)

400

200

0
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35
Displacement (mm)

Figure 23: Pile Rate Dependence (adapted from Jaime et al, 1990)

TABLES
53
 Table 1:Common total stress approaches
Reference Length Stress
Effects History
Tomlinson(1957)  
λ approach,
 
Vijayvergiya and Focht (1972)
API 1(1976-1986)  
API 2(1976-1986)  
Semple and Rigden (1984)  
Randolph and Murphy (1985)  
API(1987-Present)  
Kolk & van der Velde (1996)  
NGI-99, Karlsrud et al (2005)  

54
Table 2: Test Sites used by Imperial College
Site Description Reference
Canons Park Stiff Eocene London Clay Bond and Jardine(1991)
Cowden Stiff glacial till Lehane and Jardine (1994a)
Bothkennar Low OCR shallow marine clay Lehane and Jardine (1994b)
Pentre Low OCR Glacio-Lacustrine silty clay Chow (1997)

Table 3: Comparison of API and IC-05 reliability.

Method IC-05 API-93 IC-05 API-93 IC-05* API-93*
Jardine et al Jardine et al Clausen & Aas Clausen & Aas
Reference (2005) (2005) (2001) (2001)
Qc/Qm Shaft Shaft Total Total Total Total
Mean, μ 1.03 0.99 1.03 1.1 0.81 0.93
COV 0.2 0.33 0.69 0.49 0.34 0.3
*Ignores 8 pile tests in ‘problem’ soils

55