A Theoretical Analysis of the Bearing Performance of Vertically Loaded Large-Diameter Pipe Pile Groups

This paper aims to present a theoretical method to study the bearing performance of vertically loaded large-diameter pipe pile groups. The interactions between group piles result in different bearing performance of both a single pile and pile groups. Considering the pile group effect and the skin friction from both outer and inner soils, an analytical solution is developed to calculate the settlement and axial force in large-diameter pipe pile groups. The analytical solution was verified by centrifuge and field testing results. An extensive parametric analysis was performed to study the bearing performance of the pipe pile groups. The results reveal that the axial forces in group piles are not the same. The larger the distance from central pile, the larger the axial force. The axial force in the central pile is the smallest, while that in corner piles is the largest. The axial force on the top of the corner piles decreases while that in the central pile increases with increasing of pile spacing and decreasing of pile length. The axial force in side piles varies little with the variations of pile spacing, pile length, and shear modulus of the soil and is approximately equal to the average load shared by one pile. For a pile group, the larger the pile length is, the larger the influence radius is. As a result, the pile group effect is more apparent for a larger pile length. The settlement of pile groups decreases with increasing of the pile number in the group and the shear modulus of the underlying soil.