Analysis On Laterally Loaded Group Piles By Plaxis 3D Foundation

ABSTRACT: It has been known that a group pile lateral capacity is smaller than the sum of each pile capacity composing the group. A reduction factor, also known as efficiency factor, is required to determine the effective lateral capacity of group piles. To the authors knowledge, in most geotechnical text books, only the spacing of piles is considered in evaluating the pile group lateral capacity. No consideration on the effects of soil stiffness modulus and the total number of piles forming the group are taken into account. The availability of a geotechnical 3D finite element software, namely Plaxis 3D foundation, made it possible to evaluate those factors. It is found that the bigger the number of piles in a group the lower the efficiency factor, the higher the soil stiffness modulus the greater the efficiency.

full paper: 091104-Laterally Loaded Pile with Plaxis 3D-PIT13-Bali