Pile-Expansive Soil

Interaction
The Issue with Expansive Soil
The primary issue encountered in an expansive soil area is
usually caused by the change of moisture content in the soil
foundation. Because expansive soil is very sensitive to the
moisture content, the soil strength and deformation would
experience very complicated changes during the mobilization
of moisture content in the soil foundation. This probably brings
great potential hazards to the upper structures above the
foundation, especially lightly weighted constructions.
Example
A strong swelling pressures in the subgrade cause the road
surface to fluctuate; great shear stress induced by swelling
pressures of expansive soils foundation would produce wall
cracks that develop in a certain direction
The Issue with Expansive Soil
The primary issue encountered in an expansive soil area is usually
caused by the change of moisture content in the soil foundation.
Because expansive soil is very sensitive to the moisture content,
the soil strength and deformation would experience very
complicated changes during the mobilization of moisture content in
the soil foundation. This probably brings great potential hazards to
the upper structures above the foundation, especially lightly
weighted constructions.
 An example of expansive soil
effects
A strong swelling pressures in the subgrade cause the road surface
to fluctuate; great shear stress induced by swelling pressures of
expansive soils foundation would produce wall cracks that develop
in a certain direction
Pile foundations can be used to maintaining the safety
of buildings that are constructed in expansive soil
areas

With the introduction of a pile into the expansive soil, the interaction
of the pile-soil becomes more difficult to monitor. So Research such
as Collins suggested that the expression to calculate the tensile
stress of the pile based on the assumption that slippage occurs
between pile and expansive soils at the interface, and the shear
stress is then equal to cohesive stress at the pile-soil interface.
However, the expression did not take into account the pile
displacement; only the stress of the pile was obtained.
Afterward, many scholars suggested different methods to analyze
the pile behaviors in expansive soil, among which the Finite-
element method (FEM) provides a good option in theoretical
analysis. Nevertheless, many parameters are required when using
FEM that limit its application in engineering

Factor to consider while Using pile in an expansive

soil area
1. Increasing Pile length is able to effectively decrease the
upward pile movements, but meanwhile, the tensile stresses
along the pile shaft increase as well.
2. a critical pile diameter exists (d 0:04L).
3. a critical applied pressure for preventing the upward pile
movements that is induced by soils swelling pressure is found to be
2.5 times of the maximum tensile stress of the free pile only under
swelling pressure in expansive soil foundation.

4. when the diameter is less than this value, the upward pile
movements can be reasonably reduced, but for the pile with a
larger diameter,it has little effect on reducing the upward pile
movements, and as irrigation proceeds, both the displacements
and tensile stresses increase and both tend to be much less
sensitive to the waters incoming over time;
 Mechanism of Pile-Soil Interaction in Expansive Soils

To determine the interaction between pile and soil in an expansive

soil foundation, we first determine an appropriate and simple equa-
tion to describe the soil stress and deformation around the pile.
This could be done based on the elasticity theory.