Enhancement of the lateral behaviour of vertical piles embedded in soft clay

Construction on a soft clay soil requires the use of deep foundations. In most of the cases, the applied vertical load on the pile is satisfied by an end-bearing layer. However, in many cases the lateral capacity is not satisfied due to the upper soft clay layers. Thus, there is a need to enhance the lateral-load behaviour of the pile to serve many problems in practice. This paper is a part of a major study to enhance the lateral behaviour of piles by replacing the upper layers of soft clay with dense sand or cement−clay mix (CCM). Results indicate that enhancing the pile lateral behaviour is strongly dependent on the replaced layer depth and replaced layer extension around the pile. Results of experimental investigations were used to extract the lateral-load–lateral displacement (P–Δ) curves for replaced dense sand, CCM and non-replaced clay soil. The experimentally extracted P–Δ curves reflected the observed cracking pattern around the pile in the improved zone.