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Behavior of Laterally Loaded Piles on Slopes

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10th International Congress on Advances in Civil Engineering, 17-19 October 2012
Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey

Behavior of Laterally Loaded Piles on Slopes

Ç. Özçelik1, O. Aydoğdu2, H. Kılıç3

1
Department of Civil Engineering, Yildiz Technical University, İstanbul, Turkey, cozcelik@yildiz.edu.tr
2
Yertek Engineering, İstanbul, Turkey
3
Department of Civil Engineering, Yildiz Technical University, İstanbul, Turkey, kilic@yildiz.edu.tr

Abstract
Landslides frequently cause major damages to infrastructures and sometimes even loss of human life.
Controlling the stability of natural and man-made slopes is still one of the main problems in geotechnical
engineering. Piles have been applied successfully to support slopes and are proven to be an efficient solution,
since piles can often be easily installed without disturbing the equilibrium of the slope. The prediction of loads
acting on piles is important to properly design slopes reinforced with piles. Different analysis methods are
available in the literature to estimate loads on piles. Furthermore, there are many studies dealing with the
stability of pile-reinforced slopes. In this paper, one such study conducted by the authors is presented. First,
WinStabl slope stability software is used to analyse a slope supported with piles and the critical failure surface
and safety factor of the reinforced slope is determined. Then, the existing analytical method is used to estimate
the soil pressure acting on the pile section above the critical failure surface. The behavior of the pile section
below the critical surface is analysed with Allpile software based on selected p-y curves. The soil pressures
applied on the pile section above the critical surface were lateral loads and moments. The lateral displacements
and bending moments computed from Allpile and results from another empirical methods are compared with the
lateral displacements and bending moments from field observations.

Keywords: slope stability, pile, critical surface, lateral displacement, bending moment

1 Introduction
Soil slope stability is a very important issue in civil engineering. The stabilization of slopes by placing passive
piles is one of the slope reinforcement techniques in recent years since piles can often be easily installed without
disturbing the equilibrium of the slope (De Beer and Wallays, 1970, Fukumoto, 1972, Ito and Matsui, 1975,
Nethero, 1982, Poulos, 1995, Chen and Poulos, 1997, Won et al., 2005) and numerous empirical and theoretical
methods have been developed for the analysis of piled slopes.

The general design procedure for stabilizing piles involves three main steps (Viggiani, 1981, Poulos, 1995, Cai
and Ugai, 2011); (1) evaluating the additional resistance needed to increase the safety factor of the slope to a
desired value; (2) estimating the resultant lateral force that each pile in a row can provide to resist the movement
of the sliding layer of the slope; (3) selecting the type and number of piles and the most suitable location in the
slope to ensure that the resultant lateral force is not smaller than the additional resistance. Evaluation of the
additional resistance generally involves a slope stability analysis by means of classical limit equilibrium
methods. Supposing that the safety factor of an active slope is equal to or less than one, the additional resistance,
which should be exerted on the sliding surface by the pile to increase the safety factor of the slope to the desired
value, can be evaluated. To estimate the resultant lateral force, it is necessary to calculate the response of
stabilizing piles, including the deflection, bending moment and shear force, to the movement of the sliding layer
of the slope.

There are different methods based on the analysis of passive piles subjected to lateral soil movements. One of
these methods is developed by Ito et al., 1979. This approach is based on the limit equilibrium method and to

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calculate the resisting moment provided by the piles, authors proposed the use of the theoretical equation,
derived previously by Ito and Matsui, 1975, by evaluating the lateral force acting on a row of piles due to lateral
soil movement. Chen and Poulos, 1977 generated dimensionless design charts, based on the results from a series
of pseudo-finite element analyses, to calculate the bending moment and pile head displacement for piles
subjected to lateral soil movements. Cai and Ugai, 2011 developed a subgrade reaction solution for piles used to
stabilize landslides. This solution can calculate the pile response under the additional resistance. They studied
two cases. In the study, the calculated and measured pile responses for two case histories were compared. Also
dimensionless design charts were developed.

In the research reported herein, a case study conducted by Smethurst and Powrie, 2007 is considered. Our study
presented the results from monitoring a number of discrete piles used to stabilize a railway embankment.
Bending moment distribution versus depth and lateral displacements on piles deduced from strain gauges. Piles
were analyzed with the different methods existing in the literature and results were compared with the results of
field observations.

2 Case Study: Hildenborough

The instrumented discrete piles were tipped in Weald Clay at Hildenborough, Kent, UK and were a the part of a
scheme to stabilize a railway embankment of about 8 m high. Stability calculations carried out after an initial site
investigation showed the north slopes of the embankment to be close to failure. During a period of prolonged
rainfall in October and November 2000, the instrumented section of the slope remained stable, but an adjacent
section did fail with a slip approximately 2 m below the original slope surface. A 3.5 m high rockfill berm was
constructed at the toe of the embankment, and 200 piles were installed along two lengths of the embankment to
increase the safety factor to the required value of 1.3 (Smethurst and Powrie, 2007).

The site is underlain by the Weald Clay, in the Tonbridge area, to a depth of about 250 m. The deposit is dark
grey stiff thinly laminated closely fissured clay, with occasional clay ironstones. The top meter is weathered, as
evidenced by a change in color to mottled brown and yellow. The embankment fill material is entirely
weathered. The soil strength parameters used in design, which are based on data from the site investigation and
associated triaxial tests, are given in Table 1.

Table 1. Design Soil Parameters (Smethurst, 2003).

Unit weight,  Friction angle,  Effective cohesion, c

Soil Type
(kN/m3) ( o) (kPa)
Weald Clay Embankment Fill 19 25 1
Weathered Weald Clay 19 25 1
Weald Clay 20 30 5
Rockfill 19 35 0

2.2 The Instrumented Embankment Section and Pile Design

The piles at the instrumented section are 10 m long, 0.6 m diameter bored concrete piles constructed at a spacing
of 2.4 m. Each pile contains six 25 reinforcement bars over their full length, and six 32 bars over the bottom 7
m, giving an estimated ultimate bending moment capacity of 250 kN m over the top 3 m, and 520 kN m over the
bottom part of the pile.

Figure 1(a) shows the instrumented pile group shortly after installation in April 2001. On 19-20 April 2001, the
granular rockfill material was regraded into a two-stage slope (Figure 1(b)). The final regrading profile included
a small horizontal platform downslope of piles B and C. Figure 2 shows the embankment profile geometry, both
shortly after pile construction and after the construction platform had been regraded.

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 Özçelik, Ç., Aydoğdu, O., Kılıç, H.

Figure 1. Instrumented section of embankment at Hildenborough: (a) shortly after pile construction, (b) after
berm had been regraded to create a two-stage slope (Smethurst, and Powrie, 2007).

Strain gauges were installed in three adjacent piles to measure the bending moments induced in the pile by slope
movements. Inclinometer tubes were installed both inside the strain-gauged piles and in the slope midway
between each pair of instrumented piles to measure any difference in the movement of the piles and movement
of the soil midway between the piles.

The piles were designed using a limit equilibrium slope stability analysis to assess the safety factor of the
regraded slope. The critical failure surface was found to pass through the proposed pile location at a depth of 4 m
below the slope surface, and is shown in Figure 2(b). A point force of 60 kN was applied in the analysis at two-
thirds of the depth of the failing mass to increase the factor of safety to 1.3

Figure 2. Embankment profile: (a) from pile installation on 29 March 2001 to the start of regrading on 19 April
2001, showing rockfill berm used for pile installation; (b) from 20 April 2001 onwards (Smethurst and Powrie,
2007).

2.3 Measurements and Observations

Several further sets of inclinometer readings were taken over the 4 years after pile installation. The inclinometer
data were analysed assuming that the bases of the piles have not displaced laterally.

The results from the inclinometer tubes in the slope midway between the piles are shown in Figure 3(a). A
movement of 7 mm over the top 4 m of the slope on day 42 has increased to about 25 mm by day 1345.
Displacement data from the inclinometer tubes in Piles A, B and C are shown in Figure 3(b). At day 42, the piles
have moved about 6–8 mm. By day 1345 the pile movements have increased, with total pile-head movements of
35–38 mm. Distributions of bending moment with depth from gauges in Pile C is shown for days 42 and 1345 in
Figure 3(c). Figure 3(c) shows that significant bending moments have developed in the piles within the first 40
days, and that the changes in bending moment since then have been relatively small (Smethurst and Powrie,
2007).

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Figure 3. Field Measurements; (a) displacements from inclinometer tubes installed midway between the piles,
(b) displacements from inclinometers inside the piles, (c) bending moment distribution for Pile C (Smethurst and
Powrie, 2007).

3. Analysis of The Piles Subjected to Lateral Soil Movement by Different Methods

Ito and Matsui Method: Ito and Matsui (1975) and Ito et al. (1979; 1982) have proposed a theoretical method
to analyze the growth mechanism of lateral forces acting on stabilizing piles when the soil is forced to squeeze
between piles. The method was developed to specifically calculate pressures that act on passive piles in a row.
The force can be expressed as a function of the soil strength, the pile diameter, spacing and location.

It is assumed that piles placed in plastically deforming soil can prevent further plastic deformations. In order to
design the piles, the lateral forces need to be estimated as accurately as possible. These forces, however, are a
function of the movement of the sliding mass. They may vary from zero, in case of no movement, to an ultimate
value, in case of large movements. The theory estimates a value for the lateral forces between these two
extremes, assuming that no reduction in the shear resistance along the sliding surface has taken due to strain
softening caused by the movement of the landslide. For this reason, only the soil around the piles (Figure 4) is
assumed to be in a state of plastic equilibrium, satisfying the Mohr-Coulomb yield criterion. Therefore, the
lateral force acting on the pile may be estimated neglecting the change of equilibrium condition of the whole
slope. When the stress distribution in the soil AEBBEA is considered, the frictional forces on surfaces AEB
and AEB are neglected.

The lateral force per unit thickness of layer acting on the pile, p, has been shown in Equation 1.

 
 1   D1  D2      
 N tan  exp  D N  tan  tan     2 N  tan   1
1/ 2

    2  8 4   
 2 tan   2 N 1 / 2  N 1 / 2  2 tan   2 N   N 
1/ 2 1 / 2


p  Ac 
 
 c  D1  2 D2 N   
1 / 2

 N 1 / 2 tan   N   1  N 1/ 2
 tan   N   1  
 
 z   D  N tan   N 1  
1/ 2

 D1  D2    
  D1  1  exp  N tan  tan      D  
 N   D2   D 

 
2
  8 4 
  2
 (1)

( N1 / 2 tan   N 1)

where N  tan 2 [( / 4)  ( / 2)] ; A  D1 ( D1 / D2 ) ;c = cohesion intercept; D1 = center to
center distance between piles; D2 = opening between piles;  = angle of internal friction of soil;  = unit weight
of soil; z = depth from ground surface.

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 Özçelik, Ç., Aydoğdu, O., Kılıç, H.

Figure 4. Plastically Deforming Ground Around Stabilizing Piles (Ito and Matsui, 1975).

De Beer and Carpentier Method: The theory of plastic deformation was first proposed by Ito and Matsui,
1975 and later discussed by De Beer and Carpentier, 1977. They developed comparable equations by modifying
the Ito and Matsui’s method and gave the following equations as another way of obtaining the lateral force p per
unit length induced on the piles.

F1 ( ) D1  D2
z  sin     D1  F2 ( ) 
p 1  N   D1   e D2  D2 
N  2    D2  
 sin  
 D1 / D2 F1 ( )  sin 
D1  D2 1 N 
 D2 F2 ( )
 ccot D1 1  N  e  D1  D2 2  D2 
 N  2  N 
  (2)

N
where F1 ( )  1  sin   tan   N 1  sin    1 and
  
tan  
 4 2
1  sin 
2
  
F2 ( )  tan  tan  
1  sin 
2
 8 4
The lateral force, p, acting on the piles is obtained by integrating Equation (2) along the depth of the soil layer.

Cai and Ugai Method: Cai and Ugai, 2011 develop a subgrade reaction solution for the response of piles to
stabilise landslides in which the sliding layer laterally moves with a displacement decreasing linearly with depth.
The authors were studied two case histories in which the pile segments in both sliding and stable layers are not
flexible. The developed subgrade reaction solution can deal with the case and also can be used to calculate the
pile response under the additional resistance required to stabilise the landslide. The conventional solution was a
special case of the developed subgrade reaction solution. Two case studies indicate that the response of
stabilising piles, especially the maximum bending moment, is calculated well by the developed subgrade
reaction solution. The movement gradient of the sliding layer, tan0 (0 because the angle 0 is small), had a
significant influence on the response of the stabilising pile (Figure 5). With increasing 0, a higher maximum
bending moment (M2max) was induced in the pile segment in the stable layer, whereas a smaller bending moment
(M1max) was induced in the pile segment in the sliding layer. Because M2max is usually larger than M1max, the
stabilising piles could be potentially unsafe if the effect of 0 is not considered in design. Using the developed

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subgrade reaction solution, dimensionless design charts were developed for the case where the pile segment in
the sliding layer is not flexible.

Figure 5. Linear movement of the sliding layer (Cai and Ugai, 2011).

Chen – Poulos Method: Design charts are presented by Chen and Poulos, 1997 based on results from a series of
pseudo-finite element analyses. The dimensionless charts allow calculation of the maximum bending moment
and pile head displacement from the pile geometry and pile and soil stiffnesses. Charts are presented for soil
displacements at the head of the pile that are uniform and linear with depth. The charts assume fully elastic
conditions that do not take into account plastic flow of soil around the pile, and in comparison with results from
model tests and case studies considerably overestimate the bending moment at soil displacements larger than
10% of the pile diameter (Chen and Poulos, 1997).

3.1 The Performed Analysis

Equations related with plastic deformation suggested by Ito and Matsui, 1975 and equations related with
corrected plastic deformation theory suggested by De Beer and Carpentier, 1977 were used in order to determine
the force acting on the piles and then bending moment and lateral displacements that would occur on the piles
were calculated by infinite beam placed on elastic foundation method. In the calculations maximum bending
moments occurring on pile cross-section in sliding layer and stable layer and maximum bending moment
calculated with the help of charts developed by Chen and Poulos, 1977 and the lateral displacement are shown in
Table 2.

Table 2. Comparison of Bending Moment Calculations for Different Theories.

Maximum Bending Maximum Bending Lateral

Moment in Sliding Moment in Stable Displacement
Layer, M1max (kNm) Layer, M2max (kNm) (mm)
Ito and Matsui, 1975, Day 1345 604.14 654.02 67.0
De Beer and Carpentier, 1977, Day 1345 357.21 386.90 39.7
Cai-Ugai, 2011, Day 1345 25.50 161.50 20.5
Cai-Ugai, 2011, Day 42 73.50 100.70 11.7
Chen and Poulos, 1997 183.6 35.0
AllPile 465 26.4*
Measured for Pile C, Day 1345 20 166 35.0
Measured for Pile C, Day 42 36 78 5.4
*Lateral displacement on sliding surface

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 Özçelik, Ç., Aydoğdu, O., Kılıç, H.

Bending moment-depth and lateral displacement-depth distributions determined according to Ito and Matsui and
De Beer and Carpentier methods are given in Figure 6, together with the field measurements for pile C on day
1345. As it can be seen from Figure 6, bending moment distributions determined with these methods and lateral
pile displacements give very high values compared with the measurement results. Besides, it is understood that
lateral displacements calculated by De Beer and Carpertier method are closer to the measured values.

(a) (b)

Figure 6. Comparison of; (a) Measured Bending Moment and (b) Measured Displacement-Depth with
calculations for Ito-Matsui, De Beer Carpentier Methods and AllPile

According to the general design procedure for stabilising piles, the additional resistance required to stabilise a
landslide is evaluated before the pile response is calculated. Consequently, it is easier for design of stabilising
piles to express the subgrade reaction solution using the additional resistance (H) than the movement at the depth
of the sliding surface (Cai and Ugai, 2011).

In limit equilibrium slope stability analysis, the additional resistance force for stabilizing the slope (H) was
determined to be 60 kN/m (Smethurst ve Powrie, 2007) and the resultant lateral force for one pile was calculated
as 144kN according to Cai and Ugai, 2011 method. The coefficient of subgrade reaction was about 48 MPa and
26 MPa with Vesic 1961 method for the sliding and stable layers respectively. Then the dimensionless lengths
for the pile segments in the sliding and stable layers were calculated. After that movement gradient was found 0
= 0.0005 for day 41 and 0 = 0.00275 for day 1345 by using datas obtained from inclinometer measurements.
Accordingly bending moment and lateral displacement distrubitions according to depth were calculated with the
help of matrixes created by the method developed by Cai and Ugai and the measurements of pile C in day 42 and
day 1345 are compared.

(a) (b)

Figure 7. Comparison of Measured Bending Moment - Depth (a) and Displacement-Depth (b) with calculations
for Cai-Ugai Method.

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As seen in Figure 7, the depth of maximum bending moment calculated by Cai and Ugai was consistent with the
measurement for pile C on day 42 and 1345. The calculated bending moment distribution was slightly higher
than the measurements for the pile segment in the sliding and stable layers on day 42. Although it was observed
that the calculated bending moment distribution was very compatible with the measurement for pile C on day
1345. When the calculated and measured lateral pile displacements were compared it was observed that the
calculated values for day 42 were slightly higher than measured values while calculated values for day 1345
were significantly lower than the measured values. Despite of this, it was observed that the shape of calculated
pile displacement – depth curve was in linear form similar to measurement values.

In this study, Winstabl slope stability program and Allpile program based on p-y method was used in order to
compare the measured bending moment distribution and displacements through the pile cross-section. First an
analysis was made (Figure 2b) by using Winstabl program to determine the location and depth of critical failure
surface (Figure 8). After that, soil pressure distribution acting on pile segment in the failure surface, its value and
impact point were determined by Brinch-Hansen, 1961 method. As seen in the Figure 9, the load acting on the
pile segment in the failure surface was 155 kN and its distance is 1.21 m above. Finally the pile segment below
the failure surface was modeled with Allpile program (considering Figure 9b geometry) the bending moment
distribution occurring on pile cross section and lateral displacements were obtained and shown in Figure 10.

Figure 8. Critical Failure Surface and Safety Factor of the Reinforced Slope Using Winstabl.

Figure 9. Slope Stability Analysis Containing Piles in a row; (a) SlopeStability, (b) Pile Stability.

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 Özçelik, Ç., Aydoğdu, O., Kılıç, H.

Figure 10. Lateral Displacements and Bending Moments Computed By Allpile.

As seen in Figure 10, when the pile segment below the critical failure surface was analyzed by Allpile program,
the maximum bending moment that can occur on pile segment was 465 kNm. The lateral pile displacement on
the failure surface was 26.4 mm.

5. Results and Suggestions

In this study, the behavior of piles were used in stabilizing embankment slopes belonging to the railway in
Hildenborogh, Kent, UK (Smethurst and Powrie, 2007). Piles were analyzed with different methods suggested in
literature and obtained results were compared with field measurement results.

Depending on the studies, the following results are obtained.

 It is observed that the obtained bending moment and lateral displacement, by using Ito and Matsui [3] and
De Beer and Carpentier [4] methods, are higher than the field measurements. Probably the reason of this is
that; soil parameters without drainage that will be used to represent the short term behavior of the soil are
not known, the theoretical approaches are taking homogenous soil into consideration and neglecting the pore
water pressures.
 Maximum moment value calculated with Chen and Poulos [10] charts is very close to the maximum
moment value measured on day 1345. Similarly the pile head displacement calculated with these charts is in
accordance with the measurements for piles on day 1345. However the prediction for the Young’s modulus
for soil and the assumption made for soil movement profile type and value are important for the results.
Therefore caution is required in the selection of these parameters and the usage of charts should be avoided
for soil displacements which are 10% more than the pile diameter.
 Distributions of bending moment calculated with Cai and Ugai approach are in accordance with the
measurements. It is also observed that the lateral displacement distribution calculated with this approach is
slightly lower than the field measurements. However it is observed that the selected the coefficient of
subgrade reaction and prediction of the movement gradient has a big effect on the obtained values.
 Piled slope stability analysis (Winstabl) is used to determine the location of the critical failure surface the
soil pressure distribution (acting on pile cross section in the failure surface) and location are determined
according to Brinch-Hansen method. After that the pile segment below the failure surface is analyzed by
Allpile program. It is observed that the calculated maximum bending moment is significantly higher than the
values obtained in the field measurements. Again looking at the horizontal displacements calculated with
this method, the lateral displacement on the pile cross section on the critical failure surface in the field was
measured as 14 mm, the lateral displacement on the pile cross section on the critical failure surface in the
field is obtained to be 26 mm with this method. Therefore it is understood that this method which was
developed to calculate the maximum lateral load that can be tolerated by the pile according to ultimate
lateral soil resistance, may not always give realistic results.

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