Anti-Overturning Bearing Capacity of Rigid and Flexible Concrete Expanded Piles Subjected to Horizontal Load

The concrete expanded pile is a new type of pile in the field of foundation engineering, which exhibits improved performance compared to the ordinary straight-hole pile. The expanded technique increases the bearing capacity of the pile, changes the overall load-bearing function of the pile body, and offers great development prospects. While the performance of the expanded pile has been studied for vertical loading, the performance of expanded pile when subjected to horizontal loading is not adequately understood. In order to investigate the performance of concrete expanded pile in resisting horizontal loads, particularly the anti-overturning capacity of rigid and flexible piles, this paper conducts an experimental model test and performs a numerical simulation. In the experiment, an innovative model test method is used for testing small-scale half-face pile with undisturbed soil. A custom-made soil extractor and a loading device are used to observe various stages of pile-soil interaction in real-time during the whole process of loading. Meanwhile, finite element simulation analysis is conducted on a pile model and the corresponding data on displacement, load, stress, and strain are collected to verify the experimental results. Based on the horizontal bearing capacity of rigid and flexible piles and the failure states of soil mass around the piles, two calculation models are proposed for the horizontal bearing capacity of rigid and flexible concrete expanded piles. The models will provide reliable theoretical guidance for the application of concrete expanded pile in engineering applications and for the research and development of pile foundation.