Geo-Congress 2022 GSP 332 207

Soil Plug Response and Load-Settlement Behavior of Open-Ended Model Piles in Sandy
Soil

Md. Azijul Islam, Ph.D.1; Alinda Gupta2; Niloy Gupta3; Abhijeet Acharjee Jeet4;
and Tahsina Islam5
1
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Bangladesh Univ. of Engineering and
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Technology, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Email: azijul@ce.buet.ac.bd

2
Graduate Research Assistant, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Univ. of Texas at Arlington,
Arlington, TX. Email: alinda.gupta@mavs.uta.edu
3
Graduate Research Assistant, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Univ. of Texas at Arlington,
Arlington, TX. Email: niloy.gupta@mavs.uta.edu
4
Undergraduate Student, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Bangladesh Univ. of Engineering and
Technology, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Email: 1604091@ce.buet.ac.bd
5
Ph.D. Candidate, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Univ. of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX.
Email: tahsina.islam@mavs.uta.edu

ABSTRACT

Open-ended pipe piles are often used for both land and offshore structure foundation because
of their relatively low-driving resistance. During driving, soil enters into the open-ended
displacement piles, which cause soil plugging. This paper investigates the plugging effect of
open-ended piles jacked into sand. A series of tests were conducted in the laboratory on small
scale model pipe piles installed in sand with different soil conditions. The effect of pile diameter
and degree of saturation on plugging behavior was evaluated. The laboratory test results show
that plug length generally increases as pile diameter increases. Furthermore, the plug length
decreases with the increase in the value of matric suction. The tests were also conducted with
three different types of sands: coarse, medium, and fine sand. The plug length ratio (PLR) was
found higher in coarse sand and lower in fine sand. The jacking force for pile driving was
evaluated from the model tests, which significantly depends on the plugged length as well as soil
properties. The load settlement curve for the piles indicated that the ultimate load-carrying
capacity for pipe piles under dry conditions is greater than saturated conditions.

INTRODUCTION

The use of open-ended pipe piles in offshore structures is increasing day by day due to its
easy installation technique, cost-effectiveness, and quality control (Badhon et al. 2021; Islam et
al. 2021b). In contrast to closed-ended piles, open-ended piles (or pipe piles) are more often
installed to reduce driving resistance, as well as to facilitate installation to design penetration. As
the pile is driven or jacked, soil enters to different shallow depths inside the open-ended piles.
When the soil inside a pipe pile moves down with it, effectively closing the end, it is regarded as
being plugged (Fattah et al. 2016). This plugging behavior of open-ended piles vastly affects the
construction process as well as the axial capacity of piles (Islam et al. 2021a). Frictional
resistance between the soil and the pile is mobilized as the soil enters the pile. The soil plug
continues entering the pile until enough friction develops between the soil plug's inner surface
and the plug becomes sufficiently stiff (Mahmood et al. 2016). In most cases, the driving of

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open-ended offshore piles is partially plugged because the plugging is intermittent and fully
plugged condition occurs after a certain length of driving (Ko and Jeong 2015). The performance
of open-ended piles becomes more complicated once the degree of soil plugging (ratio of
plugged length to driving length) is considered (Liu et al. 2012). According to Paik and Lee
(1993), even if the pile is driven in partially plugged condition, the contribution of soil plugging
to the axial load capacity of piles is compelling.
Some studies show that during placement, the soil plugging of the open-ended pipe piles
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determines the settlement behavior (Paik and Salgado 2003; Henke and Grabe 2013). Fattah et
al. (2016) found out that in dense sand, pile load bearing capacity is several times greater than
that in medium sand, especially in open-ended piles. Murthy et al. (2021) studied the formation
of soil plugs in open-ended pipe piles and concluded that increasing pile diameter and hammer
energy resulted in a reduced degree of plugging.
There has been some discussion about soil plugging and open-ended pipe piles, but there has
been little effort to quantify it (Islam et al. 2021a). One of the common indicators for soil
plugging is Plug length ratio (PLR) which is defined as

PLR = L/D (1)

Where, D = pile penetration depth, L = Length of soil plug.

Typically, the degree of plugging (also known as PLR) relies on various factors like soil type
(fine or coarse-grained), the density of soil (dense or loose), pile size, and roughness of the pile
surface (Henke and Grabe, 2013). When piles are driven in soils of varying density, the soil plug
grows in height with an increase in density (De Nicola and Randolph, 1997). Foray et al. (1998)
observed that because of the dilation of very dense sands, despite the partial curing of the soil
column inside the pile, the final height of the soil plug within the pile exceeded the pile
penetration depth.
The pile installation method also has an important effect on pile behavior (Paik and Salgado
2003). Recent soil response research has mostly focused on driven and jacked pile installations
while installing displacement piles (McCabe and Lehane 2006; Liu et al. 2012). A few
experiments on jacked piles have been conducted on small-scale steel piles (Yang et al. 2006;
Doherty et al. 2010). Pipe piles are generally installed using the jacking method since it is free of
noise, vibration, and spoil handling, and so it is particularly suitable in urban areas for installing
piles (Kou et al. 2019). Therefore, to expand the understanding of jacked pipe piles in sandy
soils, it is necessary to carry out extensive laboratory tests.
While the use of open-ended pipe piles is increasing gradually, it is important to understand
the behavior of jacked pipe piles in terms of soil plugging. As part of the present study, the
influence of soil plugging into three different types of sand with different water table conditions
has been evaluated. Furthermore, axial capacity was derived from the load settlement behavior of
open-ended piles and compared with the available design methods.
METHODOLOGY
Model laboratory test set-up. Experimental programs were performed to estimate the plug
length of different pile diameters using different types of soil. A steel tank of 1-meter height was
used for model tests. The detailed instrumentation of the tank is shown in Figure 1.
Tests were performed with three different types of sand with several model piles. The sands
used in the experiments was named as Fine sand, Medium sand and Coarse sand and they were

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classified as SC, SW-SM, and SW as per the Unified Soil Classification System (USCS). The
soil samples were prepared by the raining method. For each type of sand, constant falling height
was maintained. The falling height was 50 cm (2 inch). The dry unit weight of the sand bed
varied from 17.2 kN/m3 (110.5 pcf) to 17.8 kN/m3 (114.3 pcf). The final depth of the bed was 0.9
m (3 ft) (Figure 1). The properties of the used sands are presented in Table 1.
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Figure 1. Schematic diagram of the model laboratory test set-up.

Tubular aluminum piles with three different diameters were used for the model tests. The
internal diameters of the piles were 24 mm (0.94 inch), 36 mm (1.42 inch), and 50 mm (1.97
inch). The thickness and length of the pipe piles were 2 mm (0.08 inch) and 60 cm (23.6 inch),
respectively. Szechy (1959) showed that the degree of soil plugging of two piles does not differ
with different wall thicknesses in a significant way. However, bearing capacity increases slightly

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with increasing wall thickness due the increase of the toe area. Only driving resistance depends
significantly upon the wall thickness. Therefore, model piles with only one wall thickness of 2
mm were considered in this study.
In the laboratory tests, a loading shaft was mounted at the top of the tank. It was operated by
an actuating motor and used to apply the driving load. The loads and displacements of the model
piles were measured by a load cell and a linear variable differential transformer (LVDT). The
load cells were mounted on the top of the piles, whereas the LVDT was mounted at the bottom
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of the loading shaft, as shown in Figure 1. The actuating motor attached to the reaction beam
could operate the loading rod to penetrate the model pile at a specific speed. The penetration
speed of 3.0 mm/min (0.12 inch/min) was considered which is common for driving an open-
ended pile (Islam et al. 2021a). Three model piles were simultaneously jacked into the sand bed.
The minimum clear spacing between the piles was 25 cm (1 inch), which was about five times
the external diameter (5D) of the model piles to get rid of the construction effect (Zhang and
Wang 2009). The final penetration depth of the model piles was 450 mm (17.7 inch).

Table 1. Properties of soil used in the present tests

Values
Properties
Fine sand Medium sand Coarse sand
D10 (mm) 0.13 0.35 0.16
D30 (mm) 0.58 0.6 0.75
D60 (mm) 0.72 0.9 2.3
#200 passing (%) 15.8 7.4 1.3
Coefficient of uniformity (Cu) 5.53 2.57 14.37
Coefficient of curvature (Cc) 3.59 1.14 1.53
Soil classification (USCS) SC SW-SM SW
Specific gravity (Gs) 2.68 2.67 2.65
Dry unit weight of sand bed, (kN/m3) 17.8 17.7 17.2
Maximum dry unit weight, (kN/m3) 19.1 18.5 18.3
Minimum dry unit weight, (kN/m3) 16.1 15.4 15.2
Friction angle, φ (°) 28 30 33

The soil plugging formation was measured continuously to evaluate the effect of penetration
speeds on plugging during installation. The length of the soil plug was recorded at the same time
with a lightweight measuring rod, which was inserted in the pipe piles. A thin circular plate was
attached to the end of the measuring rod so that the rod was able to move with the soil plug
inside the pipe.
To investigate the effect of ground water table, four conditions were considered: dry,
partially saturated with 6.3 kPa (131.6 psf) and 8.8 kPa (183.8 psf) matric suction, and saturated
condition. The matric suction was measured by a suction sensor installed at 30 cm (1.18 inch)
depth around the piles. Matric suction is an important parameter for the amount of moisture
present around the pile (Ahmed et al 2021). In the saturated condition, the ground water table
was kept at the top of the sand bed. To create ground water condition, water was slowly applied

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from the bottom of the tank without disturbing the soil bed. The soil conditions along with height
of the ground water table is summarized in Table 2.

Table 2. Soil conditions with the corresponding average matric suction

Lowering of water table from soil Corresponding average

Soil conditions
surface (mm) matric suction (kPa)
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Dry Condition - -
Fully saturated 0 0
20 6.3
Partially saturated
40 8.8

RESULT AND DISCUSSION

Formation of soil plug during driving. Soil plugging was observed during the pile driving
and PLR values were calculated continuously and thus the degree of plugging was measured.
The pile penetration depth versus soil plug length graph is plotted in Figure 2. In the figure, the
solid line denotes fully unplugged state which means that the soil plug length is equal to the pile
penetration depth. It was observed that every test pile advances towards fully unplugged state
during driving.

Figure 2. Soil plug length for different pile diameters and different saturation level of sand.

For dry condition, from 24 mm to 50 mm pile, the plug length increased 123% wherein for
the saturated condition the increment was 143%. Therefore, for both dry and saturated condition,
it was evident that as the diameter was increased, the soil plug length was also increased. This
phenomenon occurred as the larger diameter provided a larger space for the soil intrusion. This is

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consistent with other laboratory and field studies (e.g., Szechy 1959; Ko and Jeong 2015; Islam
et al. 2021a), which showed that large-diameter pipe piles are typically in a partially plugged
condition rather than in a fully plugged condition.
Also, it was noticeable from the graph that for same diameter of the pile, in all cases, the
saturated soil had a higher plugging effect than the dry soil. The increment of plug length from
dry to saturated condition were 19%, 37% and 30% respectively for 24 mm, 36 mm, and 50 mm
piles. The mobilized shear resistance was decreased due to the reduced effective stress
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conditions. Therefore, plugging effect was found higher in saturated condition.

Effect of ground water table on PLR. The water table was gradually increased in the
system to check the effect of ground water table on the soil plug length and corresponding PLR
values were calculated. Figure 3 shows the variation of PLR values with different groundwater
level. For all types of pile, the PLR values increased with the rise of water level and the decrease
of matric suction. The effective stress was decreased as the water level increased and therefore
side friction of the pile shaft decreased which is consistent with the findings of Mahmood et al.
(2016). The rate of increment of the PLR was higher for the 50 mm pile. The PLR value for 50
mm pile increased from 0.51 to 0.67 as the pile went from dry to saturated condition. Similar
phenomenon was reported by Mahmood et. al. (2016).
For the 50 mm pile, the PLR values were obtained to be the highest. The minimum values
were observed for the 24 mm pile. From 24 mm to 36 mm, the PLR values increased 39-58% as
the condition moved towards the saturation. Similarly, from 36 mm to 50 mm pile, this
increment was observed around 55%. Since the diameter of the pile increased, therefore the pile
contained more space for soil to penetrate inside.

Figure 3. Variation of PLR values for different ground water table conditions.

Effect of grain size on PLR. The effect of grain size on the change of PLR was noticed in
both dry and fully saturated condition as shown in Figure 4. For dry condition, the figure shows
that there is gradual increase in PLR from fine to coarse sand. As the pile diameter increased, the
PLR increased as well. The fact that the PLR increases from fine to coarse sand can be attributed
due to the interface friction angle between the soil and the pile material which decreases with the
increasing average particle size according to Lehane et al. (2005).

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For the saturated condition, there is non-uniform change for different particle size. Due to the
presence of water the mobilized shear strength between the pile material and the soil surface
reduced since water worked as a lubrication as mentioned by Mahmood et al. (2016).
Effect on jacking force. The curves from jacking force versus penetration depth that were
found from the tests in both dry and saturated condition are shown in Figure 5. In both cases it
can be observed that as the depth of penetration increases, higher jacking force is required
because the resistance on the base and shaft of the piles typically increases as the penetration
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depth increases. The jacking force for 50 mm and 36 mm diameter piles were found 150% and
57% higher compared to the 24 mm diameter pile in dry condition. In saturated condition, the
values were 154% and 63% respectively. At a deeper depth, the surface area, vertical and
horizontal stresses were higher, resulting in higher skin friction along the pile surface. Therefore,
it required more load to penetrate the same length in deeper strata compared to a shallow depth.
Comparing between the dry and saturated condition, the jacking force decreases in a range of
18%-22% in saturated condition. It can be concluded that the required force decreases as the
friction between the soil particle and pile decreases because of the presence of moisture.

(a) (b)

Figure 4. Effect of grain size distribution and pipe pile diameter on soil plugging: (a) dry
condition; (b) saturated condition.

Load-settlement behavior of open-ended piles. The load settlement behavior of the model
piles was observed after the penetration of 45 cm. Most of the jacked piles were found in
partially plugged condition (Figure 2). The load was increased gradually while the settlement of
the top of the pile were measured simultaneously. The load-settlement curves for test results of
pipe pile models are shown in Figure 6.
The axial capacity of the model piles was derived from the load settlement curves. The
ASTM D1143–07 criterion for ultimate axial capacity, which is considered as the load at which
the settlement continues under constant load, was adopted in determining the ultimate axial
capacity for all piles models carried out in this study. The axial capacity for dry state exhibits

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higher values than that of fully saturated state (Figure 7). The axial capacities in dry conditions
are found 9.6%, 14.1%, and 12.6% higher compared to saturated condition. In case of saturated
sand bed, the undrained friction angle (quick condition) is lower compared to the friction angle
of dry sand bed. Therefore, the skin friction for the piles in the saturated sand bed is less which
results in lower axial capacity.
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(a) (b)

Figure 5. Variation of jacking force with penetration depth: (a) dry condition; (b) saturated
condition.

(a) (b)

Figure 6. Load settlement curve for pipe piles in different types of soils: (a) dry state and
(b) fully saturated state.

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The axial capacity increases regularly with the increase of pile diameter, and the relationship
seems to be linear. This may be attributed to the increase in both internal and external friction
forces. These results were found in good agreement with Mahmood and Qadir (2018) who
investigated the dependence of bearing value on the diameter of open ended steel piles in sand.
Comparison of axial capacity. The pile capacity equation of the American Petroleum
Institute, API (1993) was used to calculate the predicted pile load capacity for open ended pipe
piles, and then compared to the experimental axial capacities calculated above. Figure 7 shows
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the comparison of the predicted axial capacity values obtained from the theoretical API method
with the values measured during the experimental tests. It can be noticed that the API method
underestimates the pile bearing capacity for all piles and soil conditions. Mahmood and Qadir
(2018) also found similar trend where the predicted theoretical capacity from API method was
less than the experimental results. The API design method is slightly conservative. Since the soil
around the pile is slightly displaced, the shear strength of the soil increases which can result
higher capacity.

Figure 7. Comparison of axial capacity of open-ended piles between present study and
theoretical equations.

CONCLUSION

From the experimental wok results and data analysis, the following conclusions can be
drawn.
• For both the dry and saturated condition, the soil plug length increased with the increase
in pile diameter. In the dry condition, from 24 mm to 50 mm pile, the plug length
increased 123% whereas for the saturated condition the increment was 143%.
• The saturated soil had a higher plugging effect than the dry soil. The increment of plug
length from dry to saturated condition was 19%, 37% and 30% respectively for 24 mm,
36 mm, and 50 mm piles.
• For all the piles, the PLR values increased with the rise of water level and decreasing matric
suction. For dry condition, the PLR values increased gradually from fine to coarse sand.
However, for saturated condition, the change was non-uniform for different particle sizes.
• The jacking force for 50 mm and 36 mm diameter piles was higher than that of the 24
mm diameter pile for both dry and saturated cases. The jacking force decreased almost
18%-22% in saturated condition compared to the dry condition.

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• For a specific load, the settlement was higher for piles with smaller diameter model piles.
• The axial load capacity for dry state is higher than that of fully saturated condition. The
axial capacities in dry conditions are 9.6%, 14.1%, and 12.6% higher compared to
saturated condition
• The pile capacity equations proposed by API yielded values lower than the experimental
values for all piles and soil conditions. Hence, the API design method is found relatively
conservative and slightly underestimates the axial capacity of the open ended pipe piles.
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