Estudo do embuchamento de estacas de aço perfil H em areias por ensaios em câmara de calibração

Abstract

Steel H piles are a common solution for deep foundations. The prediction of their bearing capacity, however, is not straight-forward because there is doubt as to what are the pile perimeter, for lateral resistance prediction, and the base area, for tip resistance. These doubts derive from whether plugging is believed to occur. This phenomenon, in which soil adheres strongly to the pile, causes failure to occur not at the steel-soil interface but at an enveloping area. There is little experimental data specifically on the plugging of H piles, although there is considerable data on the behavior of such piles in field load tests, in which the contribution of shaft and tip loads cannot be adequately separated. Different test interpretations by researchers and designers, have lead to different recommendations for the design of such piles, some considering and others dismissing soil plugging. The research herein described was conducted on instrumented model square and H piles jacked in fine sand in a large flexible calibration chamber. Results indicate that – even in loose sand – plugging do occur in H piles close to the pile tip and that the tip resistance is the major contribution to bearing capacity of such piles.