A REVIEW ON PILE RESISTANCE

AFFECTED BY NEGATIVE SKIN

FRICTION
Authors: Technical Dept., R&D Dept., FECON Corporation

Hanoi, December 15th 2021 1

 CONTENT
I NEGATIVE SKIN FRICTION CONCEPT

TWO APPROACHES FOR PILE RESISTANCE

II WITH CONSIDERATION OF NSF

III REVIEW ON NSF IN SOME DOCUMENTS

IV CASE STUDIES

V CONCLUSION

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I. NEGATIVE SKIN FRICTION CONCEPT

The geotechnical resistance of pile consists of two

components: side resistance and tip resistance. The
direction that the side resistance acts depends on the
relative movement between the pile and the adjacent soil.
That is, when the pile moves downward relative to the
soil, then the side resistance is positive and acts upward.
Conversely, when the soil moves downward relative to
the pile the side resistance is negative and acts downward,
and this is so-called Negative Skin Friction, NSF.
Drag force is the internal axial compressive load in a pile
due to the accumulated negative skin friction.
Neutral plane is the location along a pile in static
equilibrium where the direction of the side resistance
reverses from negative to positive.

NSF exists under following conditions:

• A fill of clayey soil is placed over a granular soil layer into which a pile is driven. The fill will
gradually consolidate uder its own weigt and cause NSF.
• A fill of granular soil is placed over soft clay layers. It will induce the process of consolidation in
clay layers and thus cause NSF on pile.
• Lowering of water table will increase the vertical effective stress on the soil at any depth.
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Consequently, it induce consolidation settlement in clay layers and cause NSF on pile.
II. TWO APPROACHES FOR PILE RESISTANCE
WITH CONSIDERATION OF NSF
Now a days there are two parallel approaches for pile resistance with consideration of NSF as
following:
 Approach 1: NSF reduces ultimate geotechnical axial resistance. The geotechnical resistance
consists of only positive side resistance and tip resistance. Dragforce is considered as additional
load together with top load (AASHTO LRFD Specification 2014) or is subtracted in geotechnical
axial resistance (Japan Road Association 2002, TCVN 10304:2014)

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II. QUAN ĐIỂM VỀ ẢNH HƯỞNG CỦA NSF

 Approach 2: NSF does not impact ultimate geotechnical axial resistance: The negative skin
friction is not part of the evaluation of the ultimate geotechnical axial resistance. At the
geotechnical strength limit state, the entire pile is moving downward relative to the soil and
therefore negative skin friction is not present. The ultimate geotechnical axial resistance is the
combination of the cumulative side resistance along the entire pile plus the end resistance
(BS8004:2015, CFEM, Fellenius, etc.,)

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III. REVIEW ON NSF IN SOME DOCUMENTS
Approach 1
AASHTO LRFD, 2014, Bridge Design Specification
10.7.3.7. Downdrag
“The foundation should be designed so that the available factored geotechnical resistance is greater than
the factored loads applied to the pile, including the downdrag, at the strength limit state. The nominal
pile resistance available to support structure loads plus downdrag shall be estimated by considering only
the positive side and tip resistance below the lowest layer contributing to the downdrag. The pile
foundation shall be designed to structurally resist the downdrag plus structure loads.”

It consider dragforce together with sustained top load, and ultimate geotechnical resistance is subtracted
by dragfocre. It could be expressed as following formula:
ΣγiQi + γp.DD ≤ φpRp + φsRs
Where,
ΣγiQi: factored load on pile
γp DD: factored downdrag force
γp: hệ số vượt tải ma sát âm
φp Rp: factored pile point resistance
φs Rs: factored pile shaft resistance (only positive part)
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III. REVIEW ON NSF IN SOME DOCUMENTS
Approach 1
Eurocode 7, Part 1, Geotechnical Design, General rules
Although EC7 (clause 1) softly states that NSF reduces geotechnical capacity of pile, it (clause 6)
allows pile-soil interaction analysis (FEM) for case of relative small ground settlement, i.e. soil after
improved. By this way, it (clause 4) treats the settlement of the ground as the action instead of taking
the drag force as the action.
It indirectly shows that pile geotechnical capacity is not the primary focus; Instead, pile settlement is
the focus of the design.

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III. REVIEW ON NSF IN SOME DOCUMENTS
Approach 1
JRA, Specification for Highway Bridge, 2002
Section 12.4.3 Negative Skin Friction, it subtracts geotechnical axial resistance by dragforce.
1
𝑅𝑎′ = 𝑅𝑢′ − 𝑊𝑠′ + 𝑊𝑠′ − 𝑅𝑛𝑓 + 𝑊
F. S
Where,
R’a: allowable load bearing capacity in which negative skin
friction is taken into account
R’u: ultimate resistance of a pile given by soil layers locating
below NP
Rnf: negative skin friction, a sum total of maximum skin friction
force of all layers above NP
W’s: effective weight of earth to be substituted by piles below NP
W: effective weight of a pile and earth in its interior
F.S: factor of safety

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III. REVIEW ON NSF IN SOME DOCUMENTS
Approach 1
TCVN 10304:2014 Pile foundation-Design standard
Section 7.2.5 Pile shaft resistance affected by negative skin friction

NSF affected depth: “The negative friction friction is counted to the depth, at which the settlement of
the surrounding soil after pile construction and loading on the pile foundation, is greater than half of
the structural limit settlement value.”
Remark: According to this guide, it is not necessary to consider the relative settlement between pile
and surrounding soil, but only settlement magnitude of the surrounding to determine the NSF affected
depth. This simplifies the calculation, but the reliability is not high. In addition, with the same load
and ground conditions, the NSF affected depth according to this document will change if the
allowable settlement of the foundation changes, this is not appropriate.

Determination of unit shaft resistance within NSF affected depth: based on the thickness of the
embankment and the type of soil as follows:
Embankment thickness <2m 2m~5m >5m

Filling soil 0 -0.4fi -1.0fi

Peat, mud 0 -5kPa -5kPa
Other soil fi (+ sign) -0.4fi -1.0fi
Where, fi is unit of shaft resistance.
Remark: This simplifies the calculation, but this determination is not really accurate and creates a
large jump in the NSF value when the embankment thickness has a small change.
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III. REVIEW ON NSF IN SOME DOCUMENTS
Approach 1
TCVN 10304:2014 Pile foundation-Design standard
NSF with negative sign (-) will reduce the shaft resistance component and as the result reduce
ultimate geotechnical axial resistance of the pile:

𝑅𝑐,𝑢 = 𝛾𝑏 𝑞𝑏 𝐴𝑏 + 𝑢 ෍ 𝛾𝑠 𝑓𝑖 𝑙𝑖
Where,
Rc,u: ultimate geotechnical axial resistance of the pile
𝑢 σ 𝛾𝑠 𝑓𝑖 𝑙𝑖 : shaft resistance component
fi: unit of shaft resistance, negative sign (-) within the NSF affected depth, positive sign (+) below
the NSF affected depth.
𝛾𝑏 𝑞𝑏 𝐴𝑏 : pile tip resistance component

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III. REVIEW ON NSF IN SOME DOCUMENTS
Approach 2
BS8004:2015 Code of Practice for Foundations

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III. REVIEW ON NSF IN SOME DOCUMENTS
Approach 2
Canadian Foundation Engineering Manual, 4th edition, 2006

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III. REVIEW ON NSF IN SOME DOCUMENTS
Approach 2
Canadian Foundation Engineering Manual, 4th edition, 2006

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III. REVIEW ON NSF IN SOME DOCUMENTS
Approach 2
Fang et al. (1991) Foundation Engineering Handbook, 2nd edition
Chapter 13. Pile Foundations is prepared by Pro. Fellenius B.H.

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III. REVIEW ON NSF IN SOME DOCUMENTS
Approach 2
Fang et al. (1991) Foundation Engineering Handbook, 2nd edition

Section 13.8 The Neutral Plane,

Neutral point is intersection of load-transfer
curve and Resistance curve as formulated below:
𝑧 𝑧
𝐿𝑜𝑎𝑑 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑠𝑓𝑒𝑟 𝑏𝑒𝑙𝑜𝑤 𝑁𝑃: 𝑄𝑧 = 𝑄𝑢 − න 𝑟𝑠 𝑑𝑧 = 𝑄𝑢 − න 𝐴𝑠 𝑐 ′ + 𝛽𝜎′𝑧 𝑑𝑧 (13.7)
0 0
𝑧 𝑧
𝐿𝑜𝑎𝑑 𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑛𝑠𝑓𝑒𝑟 𝑎𝑏𝑜𝑣𝑒 𝑁𝑃: 𝑄𝑧 = 𝑄𝑑 + න 𝑟𝑠 𝑑𝑧 = 𝑄𝑑 + න 𝐴𝑠 𝑐 ′ + 𝛽𝜎′𝑧 𝑑𝑧 (13.10)
0 0 15
III. REVIEW ON NSF IN SOME DOCUMENTS
Approach 2
Fang et al. (1991) Foundation Engineering Handbook, 2nd edition
Section 13.8 The Neutral Plane, Figure 13.10 shows the depence of neutral plane position and
dragload magnitude to applied load on pile head.

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III. REVIEW ON NSF IN SOME DOCUMENTS
Approach 2
Tan and Fellenius (2006), Negative skin friction pile concepts with soil-structure
interaction, ICE publishing
This paper does pile-soil interaction analysis using FEM (2D & 3D) for a modelling of single column
and a modelling of group column. The result shows that:
+ Dragforce does not impact the Ultimate resistance of a single pile.
+ Dragforce magnitude is proportional to the consolidation settlement of soil.
+ In pile group, Dragforce magnitude of corner piles is close to the one of a single pile, and it reduces
at edge piles and inner piles.

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III. REVIEW ON NSF IN SOME DOCUMENTS
Approach 2
Tan and Fellenius (2006), Negative skin friction pile concepts with soil-structure
interaction, ICE publishing

Ground settlement

Pile Load-settlement curves with

different ground settlement.
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III. REVIEW ON NSF IN SOME DOCUMENTS
Approach 2
Tan and Fellenius (2006), Negative skin friction pile concepts with soil-structure
interaction, ICE publishing

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IV. CASE STUDIES

FECON has worked with two Wind Farm Projects at Vinh Chau town, Soc Trang Province in the
South of Vietnam. Each project’s foundation design applies different approach to consider NSF on
pile resistance.

TP. Sóc Trăng

Dự án LH-HĐ

Dự án QVST

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IV. CASE STUDIES

Soil profiles:

Soft clay layers (30~40)m Soft clay layers (30~35)m

Lạc Hòa-Hòa Đông Wind Farm project Quốc Vinh Sóc Trăng Wind Farm project

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IV. CASE STUDIES

Foundation Design information:

Project Lạc Hòa-Hòa Đông Quốc Vinh Sóc Trăng
Wind Turbine capacity 4.0MW 5.5MW
Hub height 162m 121m
Foundation diameter 22.4m 20.6m
Applied approach Approach 1 Approach 2
Applied Standard/Code NF P94 262 (EN 1997) (*)
Pile type PHC-D800-Class C PHC-D600-Class C
Pile length (46~69)m, ave. 56m (34~40)m, ave. 38m
No. of pile/foundation 28~32 48
Total pile length/found. (1,400~1,984)m, ave. 1,692m (1,632~1,920)m, ave. 1,824m
Pile cost/found. (3.6~5.2)bil. VNĐ, ave. 4.4bil. VNĐ Ave. 2.74bil. VNĐ

(*) althought applied AASHTO LRFD Bridge Design Specification for Pile resistance, it does not take account NSF
for ultimate geotechnical axial resistance of pile. 22
IV. CASE STUDIES

Pile foundation dimension: Lạc Hòa-Hòa Đông project

+3.5m
-0.5m

(28~32)pile D800,
L= (46~69)m

D=22.4m

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IV. CASE STUDIES

Pile foundation dimension: Quốc Vinh Sóc Trăng project

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IV. CASE STUDIES

Estimated reduction of pile quantity in case of changing NSF approach

Project Lạc Hòa-Hòa Đông

NP depth (26~48)m, ave. 37m
Dragforce (71~130)ton, ave. 87ton
PDA test data, Ultimate resistance of pile, Ru (812~1048)ton, TB 923ton
Dragforce/Ru 9.5%
In case of changing to Approach 2
Ru_required Ru_required=(670~794)ton (ave. 748ton, reduce
19%)
Estimated pile length reduction to meet Estimated pile length reduction (3~8)% (TB 5%)
Ru_required (refer to PDA data)
Estimated pile cost reduction Reduce (110~416)mil. VNĐ/found. (ave. 220mil.
VNĐ/found.)

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V. CONCLUSION

Based on studied documents and using of expert judgment, it could give conclusion as following:

1) NSF does not impact geotechnical axial resistance of pile.

2) NSF induces additional axial force on pile. The maximum axial force is at netral plane. Thus, it
needs to be accounted for when evaluating structural strength limit.

3) NSF induces additional pile settlement. Thus, it needs to be accounted for when evaluating
serviceability limit.

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VI. REFERENCES

AASHTO LRFD Bridge Design Specifications: Section 10, Seventh Edition, 2014.

BS 8004:2015. Code of practice for foundations: Section 6. BSI Standards Publication.

Canadian Foundation Engineering Manual: Section 15, Fourth Edition, 2006.

Eurocode 7-Part 1. Geotechnical design-General rules: Section 7.

Fang, H.Y. (1991), Foundation engineering handbook, Second Edition.

Fellenius, B.H. (2020). Basic of Foundation Design.

Japan Road Association, Specification for Highway Bridge: Part IV, 2002.

Lac Hoa-Hoa Dong Wind Power Plant project (2021), Wind Turbine Foundation Design.

Tan, S. A. and Fellenius, B. H. (2016), Negative skin friction pile concepts with soil-structure interaction, ICE.

TCVN 10304:2014, Pile Foundation – Design Standard: Section 7, Vietnamese National Standard.

Quoc Vinh Soc Trang Wind Power Plant project (2021), Wind Turbine Foundation Design.

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