Comparison of Lateral Load Capacity of Piles Placed in Sandy Soil Considering Mohr-Coulomb and Hardening Soil Models

To stabilize a slope or create a structure on sloping terrain, piles can be installed far beyond the probable failure wedge. When a laterally loaded pile is placed on sloping terrain, the load transfer mechanism is quite different than level ground. A numerical model simulation can be a cost-effective technique to analyze the pile-soil interaction of laterally loaded piles in sloping ground. PLAXIS-3D simulation can be effectively used to carry out a 3D finite element analysis to model the behavior of laterally loaded piles placed on sloping ground. The purpose of this study is to compare the lateral load capacity of a pile installed in sandy soil using the Mohr-Coulomb (MC) model as well as the hardening soil (HS) model with prescribed lateral displacement at the pile head. A detailed parametric study is conducted by varying the ground slope (β), height of the slope (Hs), and distance of pile from crest (S) along the slope. The lateral load capacity of the pile is estimated by giving the lateral pile head displacement. The results reveal that as the slope angle increases, the lateral load capacity in the pile decreases due to a decrease in passive resistance. In the case of a fixed ground slope, the lateral load capacity of the pile decreases as the height of the slope increases. For a fixed ground slope and slope height, as the pile moves away from the crest toward the sloping ground side, the lateral load capacity of the pile is greatest when the pile is positioned very far from the crest of the slope on the sloping ground (near the toe of the sloping ground). It has been found that the MC model overestimates pile capacity when compared to the HS model.