Behaviour of model batter piles in soft clays under lateral loads

When a soil with a low strength extends to a considerable depth, piles are generally used to transmit vertical and lateral loads. For the situations with large lateral loads, vertical piles cannot generally be relied on to withstand the horizontal forces and in such cases, batter piles are adopted in order that the resultant of the external forces is acting axially to the pile. In this paper, the results of experimental investigations carried out on instrumented model piles installed in clayey soils are reported. Tests were conducted with embedment ratios L/D (L is the depth of embedment and D is diameter of the pile) of 15, 20 and 32, and at each of these embedment ratios, piles were tested with batter angles ranging from -30° to +30° with vertical. The results indicate that the piles with negative batter offer more resistance to horizontal load. This aspect is also confirmed by the moments measured along the axis of piles. Failure patterns observed during testing further support the variations in capacity.