Using steel slag concrete (SSC) as a pile material not only promotes industrial waste recycling but also improves ground conditions through its distinct hydrological and chemical properties. This study investigated the hydrological processes of SSC piles under no-load conditions, offering new insights into pile-soil interactions. A novel visualization test device was developed to continuously monitor water migration, pore water pressure fluctuations, and soil disturbance over six months. Macro-scale observations and micro-scale analyses were conducted to elucidate physical and chemical reactions at the pile-soil interface. Compared to ordinary concrete piles, SSC piles demonstrated superior expansion and drainage capabilities, characterized by enhanced radial and vertical water flow, increased surface porosity, and the formation of a distinct interface layer enriched with calcium carbonate and cementitious hydration products. These improvements facilitate effective water distribution and drainage while reinforcing the pile-soil bond, thereby contributing to a more robust composite system for ground improvement. This integrated approach and its findings offer valuable contributions to the broader field of soil-pile interactions by detailing the multi-scale mechanisms governing the hydrological behavior and interface evolution of composite foundation systems.
The present work attempts to investigate the applicability of using recycled aggregate for the development of pervious concrete and for mitigating liquefaction and reliquefaction effects. The dynamic behaviour of developed recycled aggregate-based pervious concrete pile is compared with natural aggregate-based pervious concrete pile. The study attempts to explore the inherent material properties of pervious concrete keeping permeability equivalent to conventional stone columns but with improved mechanical characteristics with enhanced pore water pressure ratio reduction and soil displacement reduction efficiency under repeated incremental acceleration loading conditions. For testing, 1g shaking table tests were performed with 01 g, 02 g, 03 g and 04 g acceleration loading with 5 Hz frequency. The outcomes obtained from this experimental study infer that recycled aggregate-based pervious concrete pile exhibits a superior performance compared with natural aggregate-based pervious concrete pile. Overall, the use of recycled aggregate found sustainable approach for developing pervious concrete pile and found effective ground improvement application against liquefaction and reliquefaction hazards.
Progress in jet grouting technology has been focused on the cutting-edge observer of jets, which aims to generate large columns of jet grouting and increase the activity of construction sites. Since jet grouting techniques vary from conventional grouting methods to modern techniques, they can be used in a variety of soil types and their application areas are expanding quickly. So, grouting methods have become very popular methods for subsoil strengthening. This article includes finding the physical and mechanical properties of the soil of the AL-Rashdia site, using a single-jet grouting machine and a steel model to test concrete piles and jet piles, and a double-jet grouting machine to compare the results obtained from laboratory model of one-dimensional jet grouting column pile with those of a one-dimensional concrete pile. The comparison showed that the settlement of the jet pile was smaller than that of the concrete pile and the bearing load was higher with jet columns giving a high bearing capacity comparable with the concrete pile. Shen's method is more adequate to find the ultimate bearing load and the settlement for this load. Also, the ultimate pile ratio was 115.63% for the jet column, and the ultimate pile ratio for the concrete column was 123.49%. The compressive strength of the core sample of jet columns was large which improved the bearing capacity of the foundation.
Expansive soils are found to be susceptible for seasonal moisture fluctuations and will undergo cyclic swell-shrink movements causing stability concerns for all the civil engineering structures which are being constructed on these soils, and particularly the lightly loaded constructions like single storied dwellings, canal linings, pavements, etc. The swelling behaviour of these soils is generally characterized either by the mobilized swelling pressure under constant volume condition or by an increase in volume with the release of swell pressure. The researchers all over the world have made efforts in developing some remedial solutions to control or reduce the potential damages by these problems. The use of recently suggested technique of piled footings and its extension to pavements resting on expansive soils is explored by conducting field investigations within N.I.T. Warangal campus. The present work deals with studying the efficiency of tension piles (granular anchor piles and concrete piles) in reducing the swell-shrink movements of model footings and pavement panels resting on these soils. For this purpose, field studies were made by constructing 13 numbers of square footings with varied dimensions (1, 1.5 and 2 m side) and 5 numbers of square pavement panels of 3.0 m side with and without these tension piles. The swell-shrink movements of all treated footings and pavement panels were compared with those untreated ones for evaluating the efficiency in reducing the swell potential of these footings and pavement panels. The maximum heave of footings and pavement panels provided with granular anchor piles reduces by about 91%, and it reduces by about 75% when they were provided with concrete piles.
So far, little attention has been paid to the investigation on the seismic failure mechanisms of flexible concrete pile groups embedded in the layered soft soil profiles considering the material non-linearities of soil and concrete piles. The purpose of this study is to investigate seismic failure mechanism models of flexible concrete piles with varied groups in silt layered loose sand profiles under horizontal strong ground motions. Three-dimensional finite element models of the pile-soil interaction systems, which include nonlinearities of soil and concrete piles as well as coupling interactions between the piles and soil, were created for Models I, II, and III of the soil domains, encompassing 1x1, 2x2, and 3x3 flexible pile groups with diameters of 0.80 m and 1.0 m. Model I consists of a homogenous sand layer and a bedrock, Models II and III are composed of a five-layered domain with homogeneous sand and silt soil layers of different thicknesses. The linear elastic perfectly plastic constitutive model with a Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion is considered to represent the behavior of the soil layers, and the Concrete Damage Plasticity (CDP) model is used for the nonlinear behavior of the concrete piles. The interactions between the soil and the pile surfaces are modeled by defining tangential and normal contact behaviors. The models were analyzed for the scaled acceleration records of the 1999 Duzce and Kocaeli earthquakes, considering peak ground accelerations of 0.25 g, 0.50 g, and 0.75 g. The numerical results indicated that failure mechanisms of flexible concrete groups occur near the silt layers, and the silt layers have led to a significant increase in the spread area of the damaged zone and the number of damaged elements.
The existing earthquake damage investigations indicate that the lateral spreading of site is more likely to occur in inclined liquefiable site under earthquake, therefore the way of foundation reinforcement is often adopted to reduce the lateral spreading phenomenon of inclined liquefiable site. In order to study the reinforcement principle of inclined liquefiable site by the two reinforcement methods of concrete pile and gravel pile, based on the verified numerical model of free field model, the model of concrete pile reinforcement and crushed rock pile reinforcement was established, the dynamic response and reinforcement effect of two different reinforcement methods in inclined liquefiable site were analyzed, and the effects of buried depth and pile diameter on the earthquake dynamic response and the effects of different reinforcement models are discussed. It is found that the concrete pile has a better reinforcement effect on inclined liquefiable site than gravel pile under the same buried depth and pile diameter. When the concrete pile is adopted to reinforce the inclined liquefiable site, the reinforcement effect is better when the concrete pile are embedded in dense sand layer at a certain depth; When adopting the gravel pile to reinforce inclined liquefiable sites, the effect is better when only clay and loose sand layer are reinforced, moreover, increasing the diameter of gravel piles greatly improves the reinforcement effect of inclined liquefiable sites. The pile group reinforcement model can greatly reduce the lateral displacement of site soil compared with the single pile reinforcement model.