Group interaction on vertically loaded piles in saturated poroelastic soil
The pile-to-pile interaction was obtained for vertically loaded piles embedded in homogeneous poroelastic saturated soil. Deduced from Biot's theory, the fundamental functions of the quasi-static development for the force, displacement and pore pressure were acquired in cylindrical coordinates. The pile-soil system was decomposed into extended soil and fictitious piles, and the compatibility condition was set up between the axial strain of the fictitious piles and the corresponding average strain over the extended soil. This approach results in the governing equations, which consist of the Fredholm integral equations of the second kind and the basic unknowns of the axial forces along the fictitious pile shaft. The axial force and settlement along the pile shaft were calculated based on the axial forces of the fictitious piles. The interaction between the piles was investigated under different consolidation conditions through a two-pile model, and two pile interaction factors were obtained. Stemming from the two-pile analysis, numerical analyses on the settlement of the pile groups were conducted to probe pile interaction with consolidation. The conventional solutions for the single-phase soil-pile problem seem to underestimate the interaction factor if the consolidation effect is taken into account as pile settlement continues. The pile-to-pile interaction can also aggravate the percentage of consolidation settlement (PCS), and as the pile number increases, the value of the PCS will also increase. Several key factors, such as the pile stiffness, pile slenderness ratio and pile spacing, are investigated to better understand the impact of consolidation on pile analysis.