# Experimental Evaluation of Load Distribution between Piles in Case of Block Failure
## 3 Results Obtained from Experiments
\begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c} \hline \hline
**Studies in the Literature** & **Analysis Method** & **q\({}_{\text{cor}}/\)q\({}_{\text{gen}}\)** \\ \hline [PERSON] et al., [4] & Experimental and numerical & 3.50 \\ \hline [PERSON] et al., [5] & Experimental & 1.60 \\ \hline [PERSON] and [PERSON], [6] & Experimental & 2.10 \\ \hline [PERSON]\({}^{\prime}\)ev and [PERSON], [7] & Experimental and numerical & 2.40 \\ \hline [PERSON] et al., [8] & Experimental & 3.10 \\ \hline [PERSON] and [PERSON], [9] & Numerical & 2.10 \\ \hline [PERSON] and [PERSON], [13] & Numerical & 1.70 \\ \hline [PERSON], [15] & Numerical & 4.40 \\ \hline
**This Study** & Experimental & 1.25 \\ \hline \hline \end{tabular}
\end{table} 
Table 4: Comparison of the \(\mathrm{q_{cor}}/\mathrm{q_{gen}}\) ratio of this study and the other studies. Figure 11: Change of Load Distribution in All Piles with Settlement. Due to this fracture surface formed around the block, the bearing capacity of the corner piles is reduced compared to the center piles. As the consolidation pressure increases, the water content of the soil decreases and the soil becomes more friable (brittle, solid) and loses its elasticity. For this reason, the soil behaves more brittle under load, and at low deformations, the fracture surface is formed and collapse occurs. As a result of consolidation, the soil's strength increases as the water content of the soil decreases, and it carries more load at lower deformations. However, due to the solidified soil, the effect of the block behavior in piled foundations increases and the \(\mathrm{q_{cor}/q_{gen}}\) ratio decreases as the settlement increases, inversely proportional to the settlement amount. This situation is clearly visible in Figure 14. Depending on the increase in consolidation pressure in each foundation type, soil strength parameters have improved, the settlement amount of the pile foundation has decreased and the total bearing capacity has increased. Figure 12: Block failure of pile group [38]. Figure 13: Soil appearance in case of settlement within allowable limits (**a**), the block formed between the pile group and the effect of this situation on the soil (**b**,**c**). In the case of excessive settlement, as the total bearing capacity of the foundation increased, the bearing capacity of the corner piles decreased due to the block effect, while the bearing capacity of the center piles increased (for these reasons \(\mathrm{q}_{\mathrm{cor}}/\mathrm{q}_{\mathrm{gen}}\) ratio decreased). In all experiments, nine piles were used, and the experiments were carried out by changing only the distance between the piles. For this reason, as the distance between the piles increased, this caused an increase in the block volume. Thus, the total bearing capacity of the foundation increased. However, in the case of excessive settlement, as the distance between the piles increased, the \(\mathrm{q}_{\mathrm{cor}}/\mathrm{q}_{\mathrm{gen}}\) ratio decreased. As pile space increased from 2D to 4D, the \(\mathrm{q}_{\mathrm{cor}}/\mathrm{q}_{\mathrm{gen}}\) ratio decreased by 18.6%. The change of the pile space and the \(\mathrm{q}_{\mathrm{cor}}/\mathrm{q}_{\mathrm{gen}}\) ratio is as shown in Figure 15.