Behavior of Piles Reinforced by Geosynthetics Under Lateral Load

Abstract

This paper introduces the results of eleven lateral pile loading tests performed on concrete piles reinforced with different materials such as FRP bars, geosynthetics geogrids, and composite of two materials to check their efficiency in carrying the lateral load. The lateral loading pile test was applied on three groups consisting of ten reinforced concrete pile specimens, and control concrete pile specimen reinforced by steel bars. All samples have the same dimensions (150 mm diameter x 1050 mm length). This research assumed that the pile was placed in a very soft clay soil and rested on a crushed stone layer, so the frictional effect of the soil was neglected. A comparison has been carried out between experimental results for all samples. The experimental results illustrated that the lateral loads carried by piles were increased up to 25.3% by using FRP bars, biaxial geogrid, and uniaxial geogrid. Moreover, a non-linear finite element analysis was verified by Abaqus standard software and achieved a great rapprochement with the experimental results. Finally, a comparison was carried out between the reinforcement cost for all samples, which showed that using these composite piles decreased its cost up to 59%.