Soil-Pile, Pile Group Foundations and Pipeline Systems Interaction Behavior Extending Saturated and Unsaturated Soil Mechanics
Creators: name: Al-Khazaali, Mohammed
Publisher: name: Université d'Ottawa / University of Ottawa
Year: 2019
Subjects: Soil-structure interaction
Pile foundations
Pile group foundations
Pipeline
Unsaturated soil
Suction
Experimental model
Physical model
Numerical modelling
Dilation
Group action
Pull-out force

description: Rapid growth in population along with positive trends in global economy over the past several decades has significantly contributed to an increased demand for various infrastructure needs worldwide. For this reason, the focus of this thesis has been directed towards extending the mechanics of unsaturated soils, which is an emerging geotechnical engineering field to investigate the behavior of two key infrastructure systems, namely pile foundations and energy pipeline systems. The mechanism of soil-pile foundations and soil-pipeline systems interaction behavior has several similarities. Both these infrastructure facilities require comprehensive understanding of the soil-structure interaction mechanism. Reliable estimation of mechanical properties of both the soil and the soil-structure interface is required for the rational interpretation the load-displacement behavior of pile foundations and pipeline systems. Currently, the design of systems is predominantly based on design codes and guidelines that use empirical procedures or employ the principles of saturated soil mechanics. In many scenarios, pile foundations extend either totally or partly in unsaturated soils as the groundwater table level in many regions is at a greater depth. Such scenarios are commonly encountered in semi-arid and arid regions of the world. In addition, pipeline systems are typically buried at shallow depths in unsaturated soil strata, which are susceptible to wetting and drying, freezing and thawing cycles or both, due to seasonal environmental changes. Capillary stress or matric suction in the unsaturated zone increases the effective stress contribution towards the shear strength and stiffness of soil and soil-structure interface. Extending saturated soil mechanics to design or analyze such structures may lead to erroneous estimation of pile foundation carrying capacity or loads transferred on pipeline body from the surrounding unsaturated soil. Experimental, analytical and numerical investigations were undertaken to study the behavior of single pile, pile group, and pipeline systems in saturated and unsaturated sands under static loading. The experimental program includes 40 single model pile and 2×2 pile group, and six prototype pipeline tests under saturated and unsaturated condition. The results of the experimental studies suggest that matric suction has significant contribution towards the mechanical behavior of both pile foundation and pipeline system. The axial load carrying capacity of single pile and pile group increased approximately 2 to 2.5 times and the settlement reduced significantly compared to saturated condition. The influence of matric suction towards a single pile is significantly different in comparison to pile group behavior. The cumulative influence of matric suction and stress overlap of pile group behavior in sandy soils result in erroneous estimation of pile group capacity, if principles of saturated soil mechanics are extended. Group action plays major role in changing the moisture regime under the pile group leading to incompatible stress state condition in comparison to single pile behavior. On the other hand, the peak axial load on the pipe is almost 2.5 folds greater in unsaturated sand that undergoes much less displacement in comparison to saturated condition. Such an increase in the external axial forces may jeopardize the integrity of energy pipeline systems and requires careful reevaluation of existing design models extending the principles of unsaturated soil mechanics. Two analytical design models to estimate the axial force exerted on pipeline body were proposed. The proposed models take account of matric suction effect and soil dilatancy and provide smooth transition from unsaturated to saturated condition. These models were developed since measurement of the unsaturated soil and interface shear strength and stiffness properties need extensive equipment that require services of trained professional, which are expensive and time consuming. The models utilize the saturated soil shear strength parameters and soil-water characteristic curve (SWCC) to predict the mechanical behavior of the structure in saturated and unsaturated cohesionless soils. The prototype pipeline experimental results were used to verify the proposed models. The predicted axial force on pipeline using the proposed models agrees well with the measured behavior under both saturated and unsaturated conditions. Moreover, numerical techniques were proposed to investigate the behavior of pile foundation and pipeline system in saturated and unsaturated sand. The proposed methodology can be used with different commercially available software programs. Two finite element analysis programs were used in this study; namely, PLAXIS 2D (2012) to simulate soil-pile foundation behavior and SIGMA/W (2012) to simulate soil-pipeline system behavior. The proposed techniques require the information of unsaturated shear strength and stiffness, which can be derived from saturated soil properties and the SWCC. The model was verified using pile and pipeline test results from this study and other research studies from the published literature. There is a good agreement between the measured behavior and the predicted behavior for both the saturated and unsaturated conditions. The methodology was further extended to investigate the behavior of rigid and flexible pipelines buried in Indian Head till (IHT) during nearby soil excavation activity. The simulation results suggest that excavation can be extended safely without excessive deformation to several meters without the need for supporting system under unsaturated condition. The studies summarized in the thesis provide evidence that the principles of saturated soil mechanics underestimate the pile foundations carrying capacity as well as the axial force exerted on pipelines in unsaturated soils. Such approaches lead to both uneconomical pile foundation and unsafe pipeline systems designs. For this reason, the pile and pile group carrying capacity and pipeline axial force should be estimated taking into account the influence of matric suction as well as the dilatancy of the compacted sand. The experimental studies, testing techniques along with the analyses of test results and the proposed analytical and numerical models are useful for better understanding the pile foundation and buried pipeline behaviors under both saturated and unsaturated conditions. The proposed analytical and finite element models are promising for applying the mechanics of unsaturated soils into conventional geotechnical engineering practice using simple methods.