IES SEMINAR ON CP– 4: 2003

CODE OF PRACTCE FOR

FOUNDATIONS
presented by

Dr. & Er. Chang Ming-Fang

Associate Professor
School of Civil and Environmental Engineering

24 August 2005

SECTION SEVEN
PILE FOUNDATIONS

7.5 Axial Load Capacity and Test

Loading

7.5.3 Calculation from soil tests

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 Calculation from soil tests

• General equation for calculating ultimate pile

capacity
• Bearing Strata for piles in Singapore
• Calculation from laboratory tests
• Calculation from in situ tests
– Bored piles vs. Driven piles
– SPT blow count - Is this all we need?
– What other choices do we have?

General equation for calculating ultimate

pile capacity

Qu = f s As + qb Ab
where:
Qu is the ultimate bearing capacity
As is the surface of the pile shaft
Ab is the plan area of the base
fs is the average skin friction or adhesion per unit area of the
shaft at the condition of full mobilization of frictional resistance
qb is the ultimate value of the resistance per unit area of base due
to the shearing strength of the soil

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Bearing Strata for piles in Singapore
• Residual soils and weathered rock
– Sedimentary Jurong Formation
– Bukit Timah Granite

• Old Alluvium
– Clayey Sand (completely weathered)
– Partially to Unweathered Old Alluvium

Calculation from laboratory tests

• Basis:
(a) Weathered materials: treated as “undrained” cohesive
material
(b) Rock; considered permissible compressive strength
• Parameters
(a) “Equivalent” undrained shear strength obtained from UU
triaxial test or estimated from SPT N-value
(b) Uniaxial or unconfined compressive strength

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Calculation from laboratory tests
Shaft resistance
f s = αs u
where :
su is the average undrained shear strength along the pile shaft and
α is the adhesion factor

Base resistance
q b = N c ( su ) b
where :
(su)b is the undrained shear strength at the pile base,
Nc is the bearing capacity factor, usually ranging from 5 to 9.

Calculation from in situ tests

• Basis:
(i) Weathered formations: resistance empirically related to SPT
N- values
(iii) Old Alluvium: resistance empirically related to SPT N-values
(iv) Rock: competent as long as SPT N ≥ 100
• Parameters
(i) SPT N-values
(iii) Multiples Ks and Kb chosen empirically based on construction
factors (driven or bored and cast-in-situ) and ground conditions
(iv) Directly back-calculated unit shaft resistance from load tests on
instrumented piles

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Calculation from in situ tests for piles in
weathered formations and Old Alluvium

Shaft resistance
fs = Ks N

Base resistance
qb = 40 K b N

Bored piles
Recommended Correlations for Evaluating Axial Load
Capacity of Bored Piles from SPT N values

Geological Ks = fs/N Limiting Kb = qb/40N Limiting

Formation (kPa) fs (kPa)(1) (kPa)(2) qb (MPa)
Bukit Timah 1.5-2.5 150 1-3 10
Granite
Jurong 1.5-2.5 150 1-3 10
Formation
Old 2-3 300 1-3 10
Alluvium
Rock(3) - - - 15

(1) Higher values allowed if verified by sufficient load

tests
(2) Applicable to properly cleaned base
(3) qb is a function of uniaxial compressive strength and
RQD

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 450

Ultimate Unit Shaft Resistance, f su

400
fsu = 2N (kPa)
350

300

250

(kPa)
200

150

100 Chang & Broms (1991)

Present Study
50

0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300

Standard Penetration Resistance, N(blows/0.3m)

Fig. 5.5 Relationship between fsu and SPT N-value

for bored piles in JF (Zhu, 2000)

600
Bored Piles
500 D=0.65-1.20m
Unit Shaft Resistance, kPa

L=13.7-35.2m
400

300 f = 2.72 N
s

200 f = 2.33 N
s

100

0
0 50 100 150 200 250
SPT N-Values, blows/0.3m

Fig. 5.8 Relationship between fsu and SPT N-value

for bored piles in BTG (Chang & Wong, 1995)

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 700.0

Ultimate Shaft Resistance, f s (KN/m2)

TP-1(C)
600.0
TP-2(C)
500.0 TP-3(C)
fs/N=4.8
400.0 KC-1(C)
KC-2(C)
300.0
KC-3(T)
200.0

100.0
fs/N=1.5
0.0
0.0 20.0 40.0 60.0 80.0 100.0 120.0 140.0
N Value (blows/0.3m)

Fig. 5.9 fs versus N-value for bored piles in

OA (Chang & Teo, 2004)

12000.0
Mobilized Base Resistance, qb (kN/m )
2

10000.0 Kb/N =2.5

Kb/N =1.4
8000.0
70,000 kPa
6000.0

4000.0

2000.0

0.0
0.0 50.0 100.0 150.0
N Value (blows/0.3m)

Fig. 5.10 Mobilized qb versus N-value for

bored piles in OA (Chang & Teo, 2004)

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Driven piles
Shaft resistance
Ks = 2 to 5, subjected to fs ≤ 200 kPa
Note: Higher value of or may be adopted if substantiated by sufficient
load test in similar soil conditions.
Base resistance
Kb = 6 to 9, subject to qb ≤ 18 MPa
Note: (i) A SPT N-value of between 50 to 70 is about the maximum that
one can use as driven piles normally set in soil strata of such
consistency or relative density, although for small displacement
piles N of up to 80 may be allowed.
(ii) Higher values of qb can be used if verified by the static load test.

Driven piles set in rock

For piles set on rock, the end bearing

resistance qb may be taken as the strength of
the pile material or the unconfined compressive
strength of the rock, whichever is lower.

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Potential use of pressuremeter test
(PMT) in weathered formations

• A large mass of “undisturbed” soil next to a borehole

can be tested in situ without the need of sampling
• Unit shaft resistance can be related to the net limit
pressure from the PMT
• The value of the test is enhanced with the
incorporation of unload-reload expansion of the
pressuremeter in the PMT

Correlations between fsu and p*L for bored piles in

Jurong Formation (Chang and Zhu, 2004)
500

p *L
Presentand
Chang Study
Zhu, 2004 f su = − 13, R 2 = 0.602
400
23
Chang & Goh, 1988
Failure Unit Shaft Resistance

fs=p*L/45
300
f s (kPa)

200
Baguelin et al., 1978

P L*
100 f s = + 30
30

0
0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000

Net Lim it Pressure, PL* (kPa)

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Typical Expansion Curve from PMT in Jurong Formation
6000

A pplied Pres sure (kPa)

5000 Depth = 2.8m
4000 Clayey SILT
3000
2000
1000
0
35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45
Borehole Radius (mm)

Deduced Gs/Gmax-Shear Strain Relationship

Normalized Shear Modulus,

1
0.9 Depth=2.8m
0.8
0.7 Clayey SILT
Gs/Gmax

0.6
0.5 f=0.98, g=0.55
0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
0.001 0.01 0.1 1 10
Shear Strain (%)

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Predicted vs. Field Deduced t-z Curves (Chang and Zhu, 2004)
350

Shaft Resistance, fs (kPa)

Depth = 0-3.0m f=0.98, g=0.55
300
Clayey SILT
250
200
150 Frank et al., 1991

100 Proposed method

50 Field deduced
0
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
Relative Shaft Displacement, δs (mm)

P0

δo
Layer 1 Po
t
δs1 F1
z
P

Layer 2
1
δ1 ⇒ δo L L′ L′′
t
δs2
F2
P ↔P
δ2 t
z
⇓ δ d↔ δ a
Base d a

P2 = Pb Select Pile Length L

z

Load Transfer Concept of Pile Design

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 Applied Load, Po (kN)

Pd
δd Qu

Pile Head
Displacement,
δo (mm)

Design Criteria
Pd ≥ Qu / 2; δd ≤ δa

Design based on load-settlement curves as obtained

from load tests on preliminary piles

THANK YOU
For further clarification, please contact

Dr. Chang, Ming-Fang at

Email: cmfchang @ntu.edu.sg
Tel: 6790-5315

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