• Geotechnical Engineering
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• v.3 no.1
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• pp.39-52
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• 1987

Model pile tests are performed, first, to estimate donwndrag exerted on pile surfaces due to the settlement of surrounding soils, and, second, to evaluate the efficiency of the downdrag reduction methods such as the bitumen coating method and the method of the attachment of an enlarged base. Test results show that the downdrag forces may be expressed as 0.25(;effective overburden). Bitumen coating reduces the downdrag by more than 50 percent, and the enlarged base attachment method is also effective, whose effectiveness increases as the sixte of the base increases as expected. When the bitumen coating and enlarged base are both applied, the downdrag force is reduced as much as 90 percent. Finally, it is found that the quantity of the relative displacement between the pile and the surrounding soil downdrag is extremely small.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 1997.10a
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• pp.373-382
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• 1997

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.26 no.8
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• pp.27-37
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• 2010

Downdrag force develops when a pile is driven through a soil layer which will settle more than a pile. There is no obvious criterion for application of the current pile design method considering the negative skin friction. Therefore, in this study, numerical analyses were performed to investigate the behavior of a single pile subjected to negative skin friction and their results were used to determine the applicability of the current design method. Including three different sites in Song-do area and two different cases with friction pile and end bearing pile conditions, total six cases were considered. The load-settlement relationships and the neutral points were estimated for different end bearing conditions and the allowable bearing capacity of piles with negative skin friction was investigated through parametric studies. Based on the results showed that the negative skin friction made a major influence on the settlement of a pile and its stress. However the allowable bearing capacity may not be influenced by the negative skin friction. Compared with the allowable bearing capacity obtained from the ultimate bearing capacity with the safety factor of 3, the current design method with the safety factor of 3 underestimated the allowable bearing capacities regardless of the end bearing conditions. On the other hand, the current design method with the safety factor of 2 yielded reasonable results depending on the end bearing conditions.