Open Collections

Numerical modelling of time dependent pore pressure response induced by helical pile installation

University of British Columbia

The purposes of this research are to apply numerical modelling to prediction of the pore water pressure response induced by helical pile installation into fine-grained soil and to gain better understanding of the pore pressure behaviour observed during the field study of helical pile - soil interaction, performed at the Colebrook test site at Surrey, B.C. by Weech (2002). The critical state NorSand soil model coupled with the Biot formulation were chosen to represent the behaviour of saturated fine-grained soil. Their finite element implementation into NorSandBiot code was adopted as a modelling framework. Thorough verification of the finite element implementation of NorSandBiot code was conducted. Within the NorSandBiot code framework a special procedure for modelling helical pile installation in 1-D using a cylindrical cavity analogy was developed. A comprehensive parametric study of the NorSandBiot code was conducted. It was found that computed pore water pressure response is very sensitive to variation of the soil OCR and its hydraulic conductivity kr. Helical pile installation was modelled in two stages. At the first stage expansion of a single cavity, corresponding to the helical pile shaft, was analysed and on the second stage additional cavity expansion/contraction cycles, representing the helices, were added. The pore pressure predictions were compared and contrasted with the pore pressure measurements performed by Weech (2002) and other sources. The modelling showed that simulation of helical pile installation using a single cavity expansion within NorSandBiot framework provided reasonable predictions of the pore pressure response observed in the field. More realistic simulation using series of cavity expansion/contraction cycles improves the predictions. The modelling confirmed many of the field observations made by Weech (2004) and proved that a fully coupled NorSandBiot modelling framework provides a realistic environment for simulation of the fine-grained soil behaviour. The proposed modelling approach to simulation of helical pile installation provided a simplified technique that allows reasonable predictions of stresses and pore pressures variation during and after helical pile installation.

Thesis/Dissertation

application/pdf

2009-12-02

For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use.

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/16217

Civil Engineering

University of British Columbia

UBCV

DSpace