Ultimate Lateral Bearing Capacity and Group Effect of Belled Wedge Pile Groups

Pile foundation of ports, high-voltage transmission line tower are subjected to amount of lateral loading, prediction on lateral bearing capacity is one of the most important projects in structure design. This paper pertains to the model tests on pile-soil interaction of single pile, 2 × 1 and 2 × 2 belled wedge pile groups embedded in sand under lateral load. The load versus displacement, and the soil pressures along depth surrounding piles are measured, the ultimate lateral bearing capacities and group effects of belled wedge piles are analyzed and discussed. An simplified theoretical calculation method on predicting the lateral bearing capacities of shaped pile groups with considering group pile p-y curves, and longitudinal cross-section variation are proposed. The accuracy and reliability of this developed calculation method are verified through the comparative analysis with model test results obtained in this study and previous literature. The predicted values of lateral bearing capacities have suitable agreement with the measured data. It also shows that the ultimate lateral bearing capacities of belled wedge pile group are nearly 1.8–2.0 times of those of traditional belled pile with the same concrete usage in this study’s condition.