Bearing capacity of tapered piles driven in medium-dense Fontainebleau sand
Bearing capacity of tapered piles driven in medium-dense Fontainebleau sand
Bearing capacity of tapered piles driven into medium-dense Fontainebleau sand was studied in the centrifuge tests performed at Gustave Eiffel University. Two conical models (T1, T2) with taper angle of 0.7 and 1.4 degree, respectively, and a reference straight pile (S) were installed by in-flight impact driving and then subjected to static compression tests up to the displacement of one pile diameter. The penetration depth and volume were the same for all pile models. The aim of the study was to identify the optimal pile shape with respect to installation and load-bearing capacity. It was found that the maximum head force at the end of static loading was about 15% higher for tapered models than for the cylindrical one. While the unit base resistance of tapered piles was only 15-20% larger than for the straight one, their average unit shaft friction was extremely higher than in case of cylindrical pile with almost 10 and 6 times larger value for the T2 and T1 model, respectively. By consequences, the contribution of the shaft resistance to the overall pile bearing capacity at the end of static loading makes only 4% in case of cylindrical model and up to 46% for the T2 pile. The results with impact driven installation mode were compared with previous study on monotonically installed pushed-in tapered piles.
L. Balachowski; Jakub Konkol; Luc Thorel; Matthieu Blanc; Thierry Dubreucq
11th International Conference on Physical Modelling in Geotechnics (ICPMG2026)
Special Session 8: Nature-based solution for sustainable geotechnical systems
https://doi.org/10.53243/ICPMG2026-46