HYDRAULIC LATERALLY EXTRUDED PILE: A METHOD TO ENHANCE THE

BEARING CAPACITY OF PILE

1
Dinesh Bishnoi, 2Venkateswarlu.P, 3Swapnali S. Pawar, 4Upendra M, 5Jignesh B. Patel
1,2,3,4
Post Graduate student, 5Assistant Professor, Applied mechanics department, SVNIT, Surat, Gujarat,
India, Phone Number: 1+91 8780093039, 2+91 9904849487, 3+91 7666469660, 4+91 8178518767, 5+91
9725757937.
E-mail:1dineshbishnoi664@gmail.com, 2pvenkateswarlu95@gmail.com, 3swapnali9660@rediffmail.com,
4
upendarjntuk@gmail.com, 5jig8107@gmail.com .

ABSTRACT

Constructions of foundation for heavy structure within confined spaces or on the areas which consist of
problematic soil is a challenge. Pile foundation is one of the solutions for the mentioned problem but for
heavy structures plain pile may be uneconomical. In the present study a new pile (Hydraulically Extrude
Pile (HEP)) is proposed, which acts as a plain pile while driving operation and after reaching the desired
depth, extrusions along its shaft are embedded in to the soil. These extrusions provide additional bearing
resistance to the pile. Plain pile and HEP were tested at three different relative densities (30%, 45% and
60%). The ultimate loads corresponding to 6mm (5 % failure criterion) settlement were determined for
both the piles at the above relative densities. The test results show that the HEP provided an increase in
capacity of about 37% when compared with plain pile. As the relative density increases, the bearing
capacity ratio of HEP and plain pile also increases.

Keywords: Hydraulically Extruded Pile, Bearing capacity, Extrusions

INTRODUCTION

India is one of the fastest developing countries; the construction of heavy infrastructures and high rise
buildings is increasing continuously. Construction of foundation to support these heavy structures within
confined spaces or on the problematic soil is a challenge. Pile foundation is one of the solutions for the
above mentioned problem but for heavy structures, plain pile becomes uneconomical due to wider and
longer piles. Thus there is need to enhance the capacity of pile by making some modifications in plain
pile.

Considerable research has been conducted on the behavior of helical piles and anchors in various soil
conditions using numerical modelling, laboratory and in situ tests (Abdelghany and EI Naggar, 2011;
Ghaly et al., 1991; Iskander and Hassan, 1998; Juran and Komornik, 2006; Kurian and Shah, 2009;
Livneh and EI Naggar, 2008; Tsuha et al., 2007, 2012; Wang et al., 2013).

Koutsoftas (2002) studied several case histories on high capacity piles in very dense sand. One of the case
had tubex piles of 406mm OD, 7.9mm thickness driven to depth of 14m. The results of load test data
showed that tubex piles can develop very high capacities and can achieve significant penetrations into
dense soils. The greater penetrations allow much higher capacities and compensate for the higher unit
costs.Gorasia et. al. (2012) conducted series of tests on ribbed piles having variable rib spacing in kaolin
clay. He reported that an increased ultimate bearing capacity can be achieved by modifying the profile of
the shaft. There was an increase in capacity of about 3% to 57% for different rib spacing compared with
the plain pile. The ribbed piles capacity was shown to be reduced with a large rib spacing (40mm) but
consistently increase as the rib spacing was reduced. Furthermore, the difference between the
improvement in the 10mm and 20mm spaced ribs was only 1%. This suggests an optimum spacing has
been found since the additional work required to install closer spaced ribs only increased the piles

319 © 2018 Deep Foundations Institute

improvement by a small amount. A wider range of geometries will need to be tested to verify this. Qian
et. al. (2017) studied the behavior of ribbed piles under pull-out tests. Both physical and numerical
modelling were done to study the effect of S/D ratio in ribbed piles and to know the failure mechanism of
ribs. Shear wedges were formed ahead of the ribs and these wedges connect to each other to form larger
shear zones around the pile to increase the pile resistance.

Under reamed piles are also efficient in increasing the capacity of the pile. Cai et. al. (2006) performed a
series of static load tests to analyze the bearing capacity of bored piles with straight shaft and another with
reamed enlargements. He found that compared to a reamed enlargement installed in clay soil, the reamed
enlargement installed in sandy soil greatly loosened the soil around pile and resulted in lower value for
bearing capacity.

The main objective of the study is to investigate the effect of extrusions on bearing capacity of pile and
understand the settlement behavior of hydraulically extruded pile. To compare the results of both the piles
(plain and HEP pile) in terms of bearing capacity and check the effectiveness of proposed pile.

About hydraulically extruded pile (HEP)

Considering the findings of the mentioned authors a new pile named as Hydraulically Extruded pile
(HEP) is proposed. HEP utilizes the advantage of tubex pile with additional provision of extrusions inside
the annular space of pile. HEP acts as a plain pile while driving operation and after reaching the desired
depth, extrusions along the shaft are embedded into the soil. These extrusions will provide multiple
number of end bearing resistance to the pile and will also densify sand along the shaft due to displacement
of sand by them. These extrusions also enable a large part of soil to bear the load and enhance the
capacity of the pile. HEP can lead to economical and efficient solution by reduction in length and section
of plain pile. In this paper the behavior and ultimate load capacity of HEP is compared with the plain pile.
Effectiveness of HEP at different relative densities is also studied.

MATERIALS

Sand

Relatively uniform sand was used in the study.The specific gravity of the soil is 2.611. The particle size
distribution is shown in Fig.1 and physical properties of the sand is shown in Table.1.The sand is
classified is poorly graded sand (SP) according to USCS classification system. All the tests were
performed as per Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS).

Gradation Curve
100
80
% Finer

60
40
20
0
0.01 0.10 1.00 10.00
Particle Size (mm)

Fig. 1. Particle size distribution curve of the sand

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Table 1. Physical properties of soil
Property of sand Value
Specific Gravity (G) 2.611
Effective size of particle (D10), mm 0.21
Mean size of particle (D50), mm 0.7
Coefficient of uniformity (Cu) 4.76
Coefficient of curvature (Cc) 0.76
USCS classification SP
Minimum unit weight (γmin), kN/m3 14.87
Maximum unit weight (γmax), kN/m3 17.87
Angle of internal friction at 30% Relative density (φ) 28.44
Angle of internal friction at 60% Relative Density (φ) 38.29

Model pile

The model pile used in the study was made up of Poly Vinyl Chloride (PVC) of hollow section. The outer
diameter and height of the pipe are 120 mm and 320 mm, respectively. The thickness of pipe is 3mm for
both the piles. Two types of pile were used in the present study shown in Fig 2(a). The details of Piles are
shown in Table 2.

(a) (b)
Fig. 2. (a)Plain pile and hydraulically extruded pile (HEP) with expanded extrusions. (b) Details of
HEP.

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Pile 1 (Plain Pile) is simple cylindrical in shape with closed end at the end became the simple bearing
pile.
Pile 2 (Hydraulically Extruded Pile) consist of an arrangement in the annular space for the provisions of
the extrusions. Plastic syringes were used as extrusion material. Total 4 nos. of extrusions were provided
in two layers at vertical spacing of 50 mm and 100 mm from the bottom of the pile as shown in Fig. 2(b).
The length of extrusions embedded into the sand was 55mm from the face of the pile.

Table 2. Details of piles

Total Length Effective Outer Thickness Provision of
(mm) Length (mm) Diameter (mm) extrusions
(mm)
Pile 1 320 270 120 3 No
Pile 2 320 270 120 3 Yes

Model box

A cubical box of size 600mm×600mm×600mm (shown in Fig. 3) was prepared to conduct model
compressive test on piles. The dimensions of the box were selected by considering the boundary effects
from the pile. Three sides were made up of steel plates (1.02mm thickness) and fourth side was made up
of acrylic glass sheet (6mm thickness) to check the relative density distribution throughout the depth.

600 mm

600 mm

600 mm

Fig.3 Model box used for the present study

METHODOLOGY

The sand was placed in the box by rainfall technique to achieve constant relative density throughout the
depth. Several trials were performed on mould of capacity 3000×103 mm3 from heights of 50mm, 250mm,
450mm, and 650mm through a sand pouring jar having 20mm diameter hole. The respective relative
densities obtained were 30%, 53%, 65%, and 73%. Back computations were done to determine the height
of fall for relative density of 30%, 45% and 60%. The height of fall, relative density, unit weight and
angle of internal friction is presented in Table 3.

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Table 3. Height of fall for different relative densities
Relative density Height of free fall Unit weight of soil Angle of friction
(%) (cm) (kN/m3) (φ)
30 5 15.69 34.67
45 17.5 15.98 36.25
60 36.31 16.54 37.17

Preparation of sand bed

Constant heights were maintained while filling the tank to achieve respective relative densities uniformly
throughout the depth. Proper care has been taken for the preparation of sand bed. The top of the sand bed
was leveled and checked with level tube. The surface of the sand bed is horizontal. Inclined sand bed may
cause the pile installation in tilting with horizontal line. The sand was filled in the box up to height of 500
mm by rainfall technique besides the loading frame.

Installation of pile

After the completion of sand bed, the pile is driven into the sand up to depth of 270 mm from top of sand
with the help of hammer driving. The weight of the hammer is 3.5 kg and the height of free fall is 300
mm. The blows were given to the pile by placing cover steel plated at the top of the pile. Blows were
given at the center of the pile at constant rate. Total number of blows required to penetrate the pile into
the sand were vary from relative densities. For 30 %, 45 % and 60 % relative densities the average
numbers of blows are 70, 90, and 110 respectively. For the plain pile and hydraulic pile after the
installation of pile the entire model box pushed on center to the loading frame. For hydraulic pile, before
applying load the extrusions were pushed out into the sand by hydraulic pressure at outside one by one
starting from bottom extrusion.

TESTING PROGRAM

Fig. 4. Details of the test set-up assembly used for performing compressive tests on piles

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Total six numbers of tests were performed on both the plain and hydraulic pile. After installing the pile
into the prepared sand bed, the model box along with pile was centered to the loading frame to apply
compressive load to the pile. First loading shank is connected to the load cell and load cell connected to
the metal rod of 50 mm diameter to transfer the load to the pile as shown in the figure 3. The pile was
instrumented with a multi-speed loading frame having load cell of 1-ton capacity with precision of 1kg,
was used to perform compressive tests on the piles. A linear variable displacement transducer (LVDT)
having precision up to ±0.01mm were used to measure the settlement of the pile. Loads were recorded at
an interval of 0.02 mm settlement. The load was applied to the pile at a strain rate of 2.2 mm/min. The
whole set-up is shown in Fig. 4.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

A total of six numbers of compressive tests were performed using the above mentioned box and loading
frame. Three tests were performed with the plain pile and three tests were performed on the hydraulically
extruded pile at relative densities of 30%, 45% and 60%.

Loading and displacement relationship

The Load-Settlement behaviors of both the piles at three different relative densities were shown in Figs. 5,
6, and 7. From the plots, observed that the load taken by the Hydraulically Extruded Pile (HEP) is
significantly higher than the plain pile for all the three relative densities. The increase in capacity of pile
is due to the contributions from the embedded extrusions into the soil. These extrusions provide additional
multiple numbers of end bearing resistance to the pile thus enhancing its capacity.

Load (kg)
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700
0

2 30% Hydraulic Pile

Settlement (mm)

3 30% Plain Pile

Fig. 5 Load-settlement behavior of plain pile and HEP at 30% relative density

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 Load (kg)
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700
0

1 45% Plain Pile

Settlement (mm) 45% Hydraulic Pile
2

Fig. 6. Load-settlement behavior of plain pile and HEP at 45% relative density

Load (kg)
0 200 400 600 800 1000
0
1 60% Plain Pile
60% Hydraulic Pile
2
Settlement (mm)

3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Fig. 7. Load-settlement behavior of plain pile and HEP at 60% relative density

Fig. 8 shows the load taken by HEP and plain pile for all three different relative densities corresponding
to a settlement of 6mm. The 6mm settlement criterion was selected (5% failure criterion, Mohajerani
2016) which is 5 % of the pile diameter. It was observed that with the increase in relative density the
capacity of both the pile increases but the increase in HEP is significantly higher than the plain pile. Table
4 summarizes the load corresponding to 6mm settlement for both the piles. The percentage increase in
capacity of HEP over plain pile increases from 13.3% to 37.25 % at 30% and 60 % relative density,
respectively.

325
 900
800
Plain Pile
700
Hydraulic Pile
Load (kg) 600
500
400
300
200
100
0
0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70
Relative Density (%)

Fig. 8. Load taken by plain pile and HEP corresponding to 6mm settlement at 30%, 45% and 60%
relative density

Load (kg)
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900
0

2
Settlement (mm)

4
45% Relative Density
5
60% Relative Density
6
30% Relative Density
7

Fig. 9. Load-settlement behavior of HEP at three different relative densities

From Fig. 9 shows that there is a critical settlement after which the extrusions contribute to the load
capacity of the pile. For 45% and 60%, the critical settlement is 2mm and 0.8mm respectively. For 30%
relative density, no critical settlement is observed. After critical settlement, the pile takes significantly
high loads and also prevents the settlement of pile up to some extent. Further settlement of the pile causes
HEP to behave similar to plain pile.

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Table 4. Test results of Hydraulically Extruded Pile and Plain pile
Relative
Load (kg) % Increase
Density
Plain pile Hydraulic Pile
13.33
30 446.5 506
23.78
45 490 606.5
37.25
60 581.4 798

CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSION

Comparative study of hydraulically extruded pile and plain pile was done in the present paper.
Effectiveness of HEP over plain pile was studied by performing small scale physical model tests. The
modelling results provided the following findings:

i. By providing extrusions, the bearing capacity of pile can be increased significantly compared to
plain pile. These extrusions provide additional multiple number of end bearing resistance to the
pile.
ii. The load carrying capacity of HEP increases with the increase in relative density of sand. At 60%
relative density there was increase of 37.25% in bearing capacity of HEP over plain pile.
iii. The tests showed that there was a critical settlement of pile after which the extrusions becomes
active and started taking load. After the critical settlement, there is considerable reduction in
further settlement of pile.

Thus with the modification in the geometry of pile its bearing capacity can be increased significantly. It is
noted that the above findings and conclusions were made based on the PVC pile and plastic extrusions.
Further tests need to be carried out with different pile material and stiffer extrusion material. The effect of
shape and spacing of extrusions can be studied so that the extrusions can be utilized fully.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The technical support from the Sardar Vallabhbhai National Institute of Technology (SVNIT) laboratory
is gratefully acknowledged.

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