Data Reduction of Horizontal Load Full-Scale Tests on Bored Concrete Piles and Pile Groups

Abstract

This paper proposes a new approach for data reduction of horizontal load full-scale tests on piles and pile groups. This approach has been developed on results from tests run on bored concrete piles embedded in homogeneous and nonhomogeneous ground. Due to nonlinear response of pile material and also to nonhomogeneous embedding ground, the problem of fitting reliable curves for representing strains along shafts is increased. It is suggested that B-splines fixed by a weighted least-squares algorithm should be used to overcome that problem. Taking advantage of the mathematical properties of B-splines, an algorithm for computing the internal force distribution amongst pile heads direct from test results is also proposed for pile groups. It is shown that the integration of the curvatures to compute pile movements should be done using natural boundary conditions instead of pile head measurements whenever possible. Despite the concrete crack, the distribution of bending moments can be computed from curvatures provided a reliable reinforced concrete model is used. Finally, it is proposed to compute the soil reactions by the integration of bending moments, solving an integral equation by again using B-spline functions.