Numerical analyses of piled embankment: efforts on concrete piles under asymmetric loadings

Lívia Mazzeu Grizendi¹; Mario Vicente Riccio Filho¹

¹ UFJF - Federal University of Juiz de Fora

doi:10.20906/CPS/CILAMCE2017-0090

Resumo

Constructions of embankment over soft soils demands solutions to elimination or reduction of settlements and prevent foundation failure due to the external loadings imposed by embankments. A solution here analyzed is the use of piles, pile-caps and geosynthetic. The piles are normally designed accounting only axial effort. However, for situations where there is an asymmetric loading significant bending moment and shear efforts can arise, leading to the failure of structural element, as can be seen in real situation. Several authors (Tschebotarioff, 1973; De Beer e Wallays, 1972) propose analytical solutions to evaluate those efforts. These, however, have some limitations that can be related to geometrical issue or even the use of empirical factors as observed in Tschebotarioff formulation. In this paper, parametric analyses with variations of adjacent load, height of embankment and stiffness modulus of geosynthetic, using PLAXIS software to analyze a hypothetical pile embankment, was done. It was observed that the embankment generates shear and moments on piles and the asymmetric loading can act in way to modify the magnitude of these efforts. The parametric analyses showed that this magnitude depends on the embankment loading, lateral loading and is not significantly modified by the stiffness modulus of geosynthetic.

Palavras-chave: piled embankment; efforts on piles; soft soil; numerical analyses; asymmetric loading