• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2002.06a
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• pp.11-29
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• 2002

Current design of pile group is based on the estimation of the overall bearing capacity of a pile group from that of a single pile using a group efficiency. However, the behaviors of a pile group are influenced by various factors such as method of pile installation, pile-soil-pile interaction, cap-soil-pile interaction, etc. Thus it is practically impossible to take into account these factors reasonably with the only group efficiency, In this paper, a new method for the design of pile groups is proposed, where the significant factors affecting the behavior of a pile group are considered separately by adopting several efficiencies. Furthermore, in the proposed method, the load transfer characteristics of piles and the difference of pile behaviors with respect to the pile locations in group can be taken into account. The efficiencies for the method are determined using the settlement failure criterion, which is consistent with the concept of allowable settlement for structures. The efficiencies calculated from the results of existing model tests are presented, and the bearing capacity of a pile group in the other model test is calculated and compared with that from the test result, to verify the validity of the proposed method.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.273-286
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• 2020

The pile group foundation is widely used for gravity pier of high-speed railway bridges in China. If a moderate or strong earthquake occurs, the pile-surrounding soil will exhibit obvious nonlinearity and significant pile group effect. In this study, an improved pushover analysis model for the pile group foundation with consideration of pile group effect is presented and validated by the quasi-static test. The improved model uses simplified springs to simulate the soil lateral resistance, side friction and tip resistance. PM (axial load-bending moment) plastic hinge model is introduced to simulate the impact of the axial force changing of pile group on their elastic-plastic characteristics. The pile group effect is considered in stress-stain relations of the lateral soil resistance with a reduction factor. The influence factors on nonlinear characteristics and plastic hinge distribution of the pile group foundation are discussed, including the pier height, longitudinal reinforcement ratio and stirrup ratio of the pile, and soil mechanical parameters. Furthermore, the displacement ductility factor, resistance increase factor and yielding stiffness ratio are provided to evaluate the seismic performance of soil-pile system. A case study for the pile group foundation of a railway simply supported beam bridge with a 32 m-span is conducted by numerical analysis. It is shown that the ultimate lateral force of pile group is not determined by the yielding force of the single one in these piles. Therefore, the pile group effect is essential for the seismic performance evaluation of the railway bridge with pile group foundation.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.19 no.1
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• pp.31-40
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• 2003

Current design of pile group is based on the estimation of the overall bearing capacity of a pile group from that of a single pile using a group efficiency. However, the behaviors of a pile group are influenced by various factors such as the method of pile installation, pile-soil-pile interaction, cap-soil-pile interaction, etc. Thus, it is practically impossible to take into account these factors reasonably with the only group efficiency. In this paper, a new method for the design of pile groups is proposed, where the significant factors affecting the behavior of a pile group are considered separately by adopting several efficiencies. Furthermore, in the proposed method, the load transfer characteristics of piles and the difference of pile behaviors with respect to the pile locations in group can be taken into account. The efficiencies for the method are determined using the settlement failure criterion, which is consistent with the concept of allowable settlement fur structures. The efficiencies calculated from the results of existing model tests are presented, and the bearing capacity of a pile group in the other model test is calculated and compared with that from the test result to verify the validity of the proposed method.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.19 no.7
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• pp.5-11
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• 2018

Instead of a single pile, group piles are usually used for the pile foundation. If the earthquake occurs in the ground where group piles are installed, dynamic behavior of group piles are affected not only by interaction of piles and the ground movement but also by the pile cap. However, in Korea, the pile cap influence is not taken account into the design of group piles. Research on dynamic behavior of group piles has been performed only to verify interaction of piles and the ground and has not considered the pile cap as a factor. In this research, 1g shaking table model tests were performed to verify the thickness of the pile cap affects dynamic behavior of group piles that were installed in the ground where the earthquake would occur. The test results show that, as thickness of the pile cap increased, acceleration and horizontal displacement of the pile cap decreasd while vertical displacement of the pile cap increased. The results also showed that, among the group files tested, acceleration, horizontal displacement, and vertical displacement of the bearing pile are smaller than those of the friction pile.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.10 no.5
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• pp.577-598
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• 2016

This paper presents a numerical study of pile force distribution in a pile group foundation subjected to vertical load and large moment. The physical modeling of a pile foundation for a wind turbine is analyzed using 3D finite element software, PLAXIS 3D. The soil profile consists of several clay layers, which are modeled as Mohr-Coulomb material in an undrained condition. The piles in the pile group foundation are modeled as special elements called embedded pile elements. To model the problem of a pile group foundation, a small gap is created between the pile cap and underlying soil. The pile cap is modeled as a rigid plate element connected to each pile by a hinge. As a result, applied vertical load and large moment are transferred only to piles without any load sharing to underlying soil. Results of the study focus on pile load distribution for the square shape of a pile group foundation. Mathematical expression is proposed to describe pile force distribution for the cases of vertical load and large moment and purely vertical load.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2009.09a
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• pp.877-883
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• 2009

Shaking table tests are performed to evaluate the dynamic group pile effect in fine sand. Single pile tests and $2{\times}4$ group pile tests are performed on 3D pile spacing. Dynamic p-y backbone curves are obtained to evaluate dynamic group pile effect by using dynamic p-y curve of single pile. And dynamic group pile p-multiplier is estimated by dynamic p-y backbone curve. Dynamic p-multiplier can be calculated by using subground reaction ratio of dynamic p-y backbone curve which is the same displacement of p-y curve peak point As the result, dynamic group pile effects are evaluated in terms of a shaking frequency, a shaking acceleration, and a relative density. Dynamic group pile p-multiplier is the largest at lead pile, and the value decrease at middle pile and trail pile. p multiplier increases as increasing input acceleration and decreasing relative density. This results coincide with NCHRP's research which suggest p multiplier increases as increasing pile cap displacement.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2009.09a
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• pp.923-932
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• 2009

Generally most of pile foundations are constructed with group pile rather than single pile. The study on efficiency and bearing capacity which are major elements for rational design of this group pile has been actively progressed, whereas there are truly only a few studies of negative skin friction working on group pile due to the consolidation of ground. The purpose of this study is to determine, among the elements of negative skin friction applied to pile, the occurrence modality of negative skin friction at center, side, and corner of $3{\times}3$ group pile using model test and, based on those observations, to propose the effective design direction of group pile.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2001.03a
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• pp.363-370
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• 2001

A computationally efficient algorithm to analyze a group pile behavior is proposed by consideration of both soil-pile and pile-cap interactions. Using toad transfer method the nonlinear characteristics of the soil-pile interaction for a single pile is modeled by piecewise linear soil springs (p-y, t-z, and q-z curves). Beam-column method, one of the most practical approaches, is used for numerical modeling of the soil-pile system. In addition to the group effect resulting from the soil-pile-soil interaction, for a more realistic analysis it is essential to consider the effect of pile-cap interaction including geometric configuration of the piles in a group and conectivity conditions between piles and the cap. This paper mainly focuses on the pile-cap interaction and the development of a rational numerical procedure of its incorporation with the beam-column method.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.37-46
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• 2001

Pile load tests were carried out to investigate the contribution of the pile cap to the carrying capacity of a pile group and load transfer characteristics of piles in the group. A group of 24 piles$(4 \times6 array)$ of 92.5mm diameter steel pipe were installed to the depth of 3m fron the ground surface, the top of weathered rock. A maximum load of 320ton was applied to the pile cap, $1.5\times2.3m$, in contact with the ground surface. At the maximum load of 320ton, the pile cap has carried 22% of the total load. Average ultimate capacity of pile in the pile group was estimated to be 16.4ton, substantially higher than that of single pile, installed at the corner and tested before pile cap construction. For the same magnitude of settlement, the pile in the center carried less load than the pile at the perimeter due to strain superposition effect. Piles in the group showed almost constant contribution(approx. 60%) of side friction to the total capacity for all of the loading stages, while that of single pile decreased from 82% to 65%.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.20 no.8
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• pp.5-12
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• 2019

A pile group, that consists of several piles connected by a pile cap, is used as the superstructure. The pile supports vertical and horizontal load to design the pile group, but the effect of bearing capacity of the pile cap has not considered. Various researches have been conducted to reflect the effect of bearing capacity of the pile cap in order to reduce the amount of piles in the range of the stability under the vertical load of the superstructure. However, the effect of bearing capacity under the horizontal seismic load has not been studied adequately. Therefore, a shaking table test was carried out with different-sized pile caps that support the superstructure in this study. This test was to verify the influence of the size of the pile cap in the group pile under the horizontal load. The result shows that the size of the pile cap affects to the dynamic behavior of the superstructure and the pile group. Also, the bigger size of the pile group makes the larger constraint effect of ground, and it results that both the ground and the pile moves as a whole.