• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.33 no.8
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• pp.5-16
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• 2017

When a lateral load is applied to a short pile whose embedded depth is relatively smaller than its diameter, an overturning failure occurs. To investigate the behavior of laterally loaded short piles, several model tests in laboratory scales had been carried out, however the behavior of large moment carrying piles for electric poles, traffic sign and road lamp, etc. have not been revealed yet. This paper deals with the real-scale load tests for 750 mm diameter short piles. To simulate the actual loading condition, very large moment was mobilized by applying lateral loads to the location 8 m away from the pile head. Three load tests changing the pile embedded lengths to 2.0 m, 2.5 m, and 3.0 m were carried out. The test piles overturned abruptly with very small displacement and rotation before the failures. These brittle failures are in contrast with the ductile failures shown in the former model tests with the relatively smaller moment to lateral load ratio. Comparisons of the test results with three existing methods for the estimation of the ultimate lateral capacity show that the method assuming the rotation point at pile tip matches well when the embedded depth is small, however, as the embedded depth increases the other two methods assuming the inversion of soil pressure with respect to rotation points in pile length match better.