Collapsible soils may experience sudden and excessive settlement when inundated. The use of pile foundations that penetrate the collapsible soil layer to reach a firm stratum is widely used in practice. However, when the ground is inundated, large and sudden settlement of the surrounding soil may take place, causing negative skin friction on the pile’s shaft, which may lead to catastrophic failure. In the literature, research dealing with negative skin friction for piles in collapsible soil is lagging due to the complexity of modeling collapsible soil analytically. Alternatively, results of sophisticated experimental investigation may produce valuable information to predict the negative skin friction and accordingly the drag load on these piles. This paper presents the results of an experimental investigation on a single end-bearing pile in collapsible soil. The investigation is tailored to measure the soil collapse before and during inundation and the associated drag load on the pile. The theory proposed by Hanna and Sharif in 2006 for predicting negative skin friction on piles due to consolidation of the surrounding soft clay was extended to predict the negative skin friction for these piles in collapsible soils. A proposed design procedure is presented.
