Lateral Pile Resistance, Wall Displacement, and Induced Reinforcement Force for Laterally Loaded Single Piles Near Mechanically Stabilized Earth Walls

Abstract

A full-scale mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) wall was constructed with inextensible reinforcements, and 23 lateral load tests were conducted on single piles spaced at distances of about 2 to 5 pile diameters (D) from the back face of the wall to the center of the pile. Tests were performed on pipe, square, and H-piles. Lateral resistance decreased significantly when piles were located closer than about 4D from the wall. P-multipliers were developed to account for the reduction in lateral soil resistance for piles near the wall and were approximately 1 for piles located further than about 4D from the wall but decreased linearly for smaller distances. They provided a reasonable means for estimating reduced lateral resistance and were not significantly affected by differences in reinforcement length, reinforcing type, or pile shape. Measured tensile force in the reinforcements tended to reach a peak near the pile rather than at the wall face. Equations are developed to predict maximum tensile force in the reinforcements. Tensile force increased with pile head load and decreased with increased transverse distance from the load point.