Influence of Pile Cap Thickness on the Bearing Characteristics of Group Piles Foundation

Based on test method of numerical simulation, the bearing characteristics of large-diameter rock-socket pile with different super-thick pile caps have been analyzed, including the finite element model, Numeric Simulation of different heights of pile cap, Pile-soil load sharing, and stress flow analysis of thick pile caps. The results indicated that pile cap thickness has little influence on pile bearing capacity for the thick pile cap, when thickness of pile cap increases to a certain thickness, it would not affect the settlement characteristics under the pile caps. With the increase of the thickness of cap, the pile side friction load sharing value of pile side friction decreases, while the load sharing value of pile tip load increase, and soil force under the pile cap does not change with the different thickness of pile cap. However,it is advantageous to increase cap thickness to reduce tensile stress.