Contribution of Vertical Skin Friction to the Lateral Resistance of Large-Diameter Shafts

Abstract

Large-diameter drilled shafts embedded in stiff materials (e.g., clay and weak rock) experience larger lateral resistance compared to the resistance values obtained from available soil-pile models, which usually produce a conservative design. The axial skin friction (i.e., vertical side shear) developed on the side of the large-diameter drilled shafts in stiff clay and weak rock (i.e., cohesive intermediate geomaterials) improves shaft resistance to the lateral loads (i.e., the shaft-head lateral stiffness). This paper presents a model that calculates the vertical skin friction induced by the vertical-displacement component of the shaft deflection and section rotation through the use of the