Settlement of Single Compressible Pile

The settlement behavior of a single compressible floating pile is analyzed and influence factors are presented for the settlement for a wide range of values of length-to-diameter ratio L/d and pile stiffness factor K, a measure of the relative compressibility of the pile and, for a solid pile, the ratio of the Young’s moduli of the pile and the soil. The value of K markedly affects the settlement and the shear stress distribution along the pile and has a considerable influence on the load-settlement behavior of a pile loaded to failure in a saturated clay under undrained conditions. However, the ratio of the immediate to the total final settlement is only slightly affected by K while the settlement reduction due to an enlarged pile base is almost independent of K. The value of K at which the pile behaves as an incompressible pile (for which K = [infinity]) increases as L/d increases. Comparisons between the theoretical behavior of a pile and that reported from field measurements of piles in clay show encouraging agreement.