HKIE Transactions, 2013 Vol. 20, No. 4, 206213, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1023697X.2013.

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The HKIE Outstanding Paper Award for Young Engineers/Researchers 2013 Shortlisted Paper Relationship of friction and shear displacement along the depth of shaft-grouted mini-piles and a case study
C.Y. Kan, , C.T. Wong and M.K. Leung
Architectural Services Department, The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, Hong Kong, Peoples Republic of China (Received 12 April 2013; accepted 10 September 2013 ) In Hong Kong, piled foundations using shaft-grouted frictional piles have become more commonly adopted, in particular, for areas where bedrock can only be found at a very deep level. In the design aspect, there are various theoretical methods (e.g. method, method, Nottingham and Schmertmann cone penetration test method and N -value method) available to compute the design shaft friction; in situ measurements of the values of the shaft friction have also been carried out by numerous researchers to validate the design values. However, there is limited information on the correlation between the mobilised shaft friction and the shear displacement at the pilesoil interface. This paper presents the use of shaft-grouted frictional mini-piles founding on soil in a project of Architectural Services Department of the HKSAR Government. The load-tested results of two instrumented piles from that project followed by a discussion on the ndings regarding the relationship between the mobilised shaft friction and the shear displacement of the pilesoil interface by both and N -value methods are presented. Keywords: piled foundation; shaft grouted; shaft friction; frictional mini-pile; instrumented pile; shear displacement

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Introduction Traditional small diameter frictional piles, which are usually drilled and cast in situ, are especially suited as foundations for loading that is not large and for sites that are with dicult and congested access, or where minimal disturbance to the existing structures is required, or where sound bedrock can only be found at a very deep level, e.g. more than 60 m in Mid-Levels, Tung Chung or some reclaimed land. The shaft friction between the soil and the pile shaft of such small diameter frictional piles can be enhanced by post-grouting along their shaft, which increases its load-carrying capacity by improving the soil strength around the pile perimeter due to the pressure grouting. This eect may be considered as similar to a pile without post-grouting but with an enlarged pile diameter. Hence, there is an improvement in shaft frictional capacity and thus piles of shorter length can be achieved for the same load-carrying capacity when compared with those piles without shaft-grouting. The shaft-grouting technique has been employed in Hong Kong for piles since the early 1990s and for barrettes and large diameter-bored piles since the late 1990s. Numerous local and overseas in situ
Corresponding The

measurements have then been carried out and published [17] to calculate the average shaft friction along a frictional pile, and Lei and Ng [5] reported the analysis results obtained from a number of shaft-grouted rectangular barrettes and circular-bored piles from dierent projects, in which the maximum mobilised shaft friction can be up to 4.1 N with an average values ranging from 1.64 to 2.3 N for the piles in Hong Kong saprolites. GEO [8] by summarising the data of loading tested on shaft-grouted piles in Hong Kong found that the fmax /N values can range from 1.4 to 5.5. Yet a few of them have correlated the relationship of the mobilised shaft friction with the shear displacement along the depth of the frictional piles. Recently, Architectural Services Department of the HKSAR Government has employed such shaft-grouted frictional mini-piles formed by the Symmetrix method as piled foundation in a project in Mid-Levels. Two instrumented piles were installed in this project to monitor the strain distribution under test loads along the piles. The correlation between the mobilised shaft friction of the sub-soil strata and the shear displacement of the pilesoil interface using and N -values will be discussed in this paper.

author. Email: kancy@archsd.gov.hk author was 35 years old or younger at the time of his/her paper submission.

2013 Taylor & Francis

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Figure 1. Idealised pilesoil interface model, soil zoning along frictional pile and frequency distribution diagram of critical shear displacement. (a) Idealised pilesoil interface shear friction with shear displacement (Source: Misra and Chen [9]); (b) zoning of soil along a frictional pile (Source: modied from Misra et al. [10]) and (c) frequency distribution diagram of the test data of critical shear displacement (Source: Luo et al. [11]).

Relationship between shaft friction and shear displacement Misra and Chen [9] proposed an idealised model for the soil at the pilesoil interface in which the mobilised shaft friction is assumed to vary linearly with the shear displacement in an elastic zone, and is then assumed to be constant (i.e. fully mobilised) once the soil movement exceeds a critical shear displacement (Figure 1(a)). When a frictional pile is subjected to vertical load, the movement at the pile head is the largest and the movement will then decrease along the length of the pile. By applying the idealised model proposed by Misra and Chen [9], the shaft friction along the length can be divided into an elastic zone and a plastic zone when the pile is subjected to a certain load (Figure 1(b)). Elastic zone is at the lower portion of the pile where the shear displacement at the interface is still less than critical shear displacement. Once the shear displacement at the interface of the top portion of the pile exceeds critical shear displacement, the plastic zone occurs. The location of transition from elastic to plastic zone at a given pile load has also been provided by Misra and Chen [9] in the form of ordinary dierential equations. The works from Frizzi and Meyer [12] and ONeill and Reese [13] indicate that a pile settlement of about 0.41% of the pile diameter shall be required for full mobilisation

of the shaft resistance. Russo [14] reports the test results on two shaft-grouted micropiles which indicates that a maximum mobilised shear stress of 69 and 95 kPa can be attained for a shear displacement of 3 and 7 mm, respectively. Lei and Ng [5] also report the ndings from the test data of piles from projects in Singapore, Malaysia and Canada, in which a local displacement of about 410 mm is required for full mobilisation of the shaft resistance. They also classify in their paper the test data of rectangular barrettes and circular-bored piles constructed in Hong Kong saprolites in three mobilisation ratings, which have the shaft resistance either fully mobilised, substantially mobilised or the degree of mobilisation being unknown. For those piles with shaft resistance fully mobilised, it was reported that an average local displacement of about 20 mm is required at the pilesoil interface. Luo et al. [11] summarise the ndings from numerous researchers that the critical shear displacement is mostly in the range of 0.8 5.6 mm, and 2.55.6 mm is the mode (Figure 1(c)). Thus, with the observations provided by Luo et al. [11] and Lei and Ng [5], a shear displacement of about 48 mm will usually be sucient for full mobilisation of the pilesoil interface friction. Apart from reviewing the ndings from other researchers, two instrumented frictional mini-piles using

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Figure 2. the site.

Project details of the proposed 2-storey block. (a) Site location plan, (b) architectural impression and (c) sub-soil prole of

the shaft-grouting techniques have been installed with strain gauges in a project at Hollywood Road, Hong Kong in order to further study the correlation between the mobilised shaft friction and the shear displacement of the pilesoil interface and their variation with depth. The ndings on the critical shear displacement as observed from the instrumented piles of the project will also be discussed in the following sections. Case study In the adaptive reuse of the former police married quarters at Hollywood Road, a new 2-storey building is to be constructed at the central courtyard in between two existing quarter blocks. The locations of the site, the architectural impression of the new building and the underlying soil prole are shown in Figure 2. Having considered various factors including sub-soil prole (e.g. bedrock is found to be about 115.7 m below ground), limited space for foundation due to the existence of the underground heritage remains and the concern on vibration problems

aecting the existing buildings in close proximity, a total of 34 numbers of shafted-grouted frictional mini-pile was adopted for the new 2-storey block. The frictional mini-piles were constructed using Isection built-up from steel plates and encased with cement grout with a diameter of 305 mm with a pile length of about 40 m below the existing ground level, and the holes were formed by the Symmetrix method. Two instrumented piles (details in Figure 3) were installed in order to verify the actual pile behaviour under loading and to obtain the correlation between the shaft friction and the shear displacement of the pilesoil interface along the pile length. For each instrumented pile, a total of 20 numbers of Geokon vibrating wire strain gauges were installed at 10 levels along the pile length with 2 numbers of strain gauges at each level. Results and discussion The two instrumented piles (pile no. P19 and P22) were test loaded to twice of their working capacity of 1300 kN

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Figure 3.

Details of instrumented pile.

(i.e. 2600 kN) and maintained for 72 hours. The load was applied to each pile head through four loading cycles, and readings of the strain gauges and pile head movements were taken at each load increment throughout the loading test. The maximum pile head settlements at a load of 2600 kN were found to be 7.4 and 8.5 mm for P19 and P22, respectively. The axial load and hence shaft friction along the instrumented piles were then deduced from the strain values along the pile. Figure 4 plots the axial force along the depth of each pile at test load of 650, 1300, 1950 and 2600 kN. In the following paragraphs, both and N -value methods are used to correlate the relationship between the mobilised shaft friction and the shear displacement of the pilesoil interface for the two instrumented piles. The shear displacement at each segment of pile is determined by summation of the shortening of each pile segment at and below the segment being considered together with the eect of measured pile head settlement being taken into account. The shortening of each pile segment is estimated by using the measured vertical strains. Depth-dependent method The US Federal Highway Administration in Drilled Shafts: Construction Procedures and LRFD Design Methods [15] provides two dierent approaches for evaluating the coecient to the eective horizontal stress. One commonly adopted approach is the depth-dependent method where the relationships between and depth are developed empirically from results of eld load tests. Another fundamental method is to evaluate in terms of

the coecient of horizontal soil stress and the soil friction angle of the pilesoil interface. Figure 5(a) shows the relationship of the values of at depth z from the ground level for the two instrumented piles at the maximum test load of 2600 kN, with the best-t trend line in black shown alongside with the depth-dependent design lines proposed by ONeill and Reese [13] and Coleman and Arcement [16]. Figure 5(a) shows that the values of of the two instrumented piles are depth dependent with the value of being the greatest at pile head and then decreasing with depth. The results also show similar trend as those given by ONeill and Reese [13] and Coleman and Arcement [16] though the best-t line is not identical from those given by them which are originally developed by data tting of the eld test results from continuous ight auger piles. Brown et al. [15] explain the variation of with depth as noted from the eld data by attributing to the eect of preconsolidation which increases the in situ horizontal stress at the surface and that most soil deposits tend towards a normally consolidated state with increasing depth resulting in higher K and at the surface and lower value of K and with depth. However, a better explanation can be made from the shear displacement as shown in Figure 5(b). Figure 5(b) shows that the variation of along the length of both piles at the maximum test load of 2600 kN tallies closely with the zoning prole in Figure 1 proposed by Misra et al. [10]. This observed pile behaviour may, therefore, be due to the dierent magnitudes of movement at the pilesoil interface along the length of the pile. In order to evaluate the eect of shear movement on the value of , a plot of against the measured shear movement at the pilesoil interface of the two instrumented piles at test loads of 650, 1300, 1950 and 2600 kN with the trend line added is shown on Figure 6. Figure 6 clearly shows that a larger shear movement at the pilesoil interface would result in a larger value. When a pile is subjected to vertical load, the movement at the pile head will be the largest such that there shall be relatively larger shear displacement of the top portion of pile than the soil at lower portion of the pile. These can, therefore, conrm that a larger value of at the pile head is due to larger shear displacement of the top portion of pile such that the soil is more mobilised than that at lower portion of pile. Figure 6 further shows that plastic behaviour of soil cannot be observed until a shear displacement of about 8 mm is reached. Therefore, if the shaft friction of the whole length of pile is to be fully mobilised, at least a shear displacement of 8 mm at the pilesoil interface for each pile segment together with a similar movement at the pile toe shall be required. If this happens, the pile may, however, suer much settlement at the pile head not meeting the usual pile acceptance criterion, e.g. the Davisson method.

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C.Y. Kan et al. by most practitioners the average mobilised shaft friction by averaging the area under the plot of fmax /N against the depth of the pile by the length where the shaft friction has been mobilised. Table 1 shows the detailed calculation of the average fmax /N with the mobilised length for the two instrumented piles and the average value of mobilised fmax /N ranges from 3.9 to 4.1. The relationship of fmax /N and shear displacement at the pilesoil interface with the depth along the instrumented piles at the maximum test load of 2600 kN is

N-value method Apart from the depth-dependent method as discussed in the previous section to correlate the shaft friction with the shear displacement, the N -value method was also employed to analyse the results. Table 1 shows the calculation of the maximum mobilised fmax /N with the depth. The maximum mobilised fmax /N is found to be ranging from 7.9 to 9.8 at the top of the piles and the values then decrease at deeper depth. Apart from considering maximum mobilised fmax /N value, it is more common to adopt

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Figure 4.

Axial load distribution for the instrumented piles along their lengths. (a) Pile no. 19 and (b) Pile no. 22.

Figure 5. P22).

(a) Variation of with depth z for instrumented piles and (b) Variation of values for instrumented piles (Pile no. P19 and

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Table 1. Calculation of average fmax /N in mobilised length of instrumented piles. fmax /N (kPa) Depth z from pile head (m) 0.95 5.95 10.95 15.95 20.95 25.95 30.95 35.95a 40.95a 45.95a Average Figure 6. Variation of with shear displacement movement at pilesoil interface. Pile no. 19 7.99 7.59 6.26 3.97 0.77 0.57 0.17 0.09 0.04 0.01 3.90 Pile no. 22 9.80 7.19 8.08 2.42 0.73 0.33 0.11 0.01 0.00 0.03 4.10

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a The values of f max /N are neglected for calculating the average values, as these portions are assumed of not having been mobilised under the loading test.

shown in Figure 7. It can be observed that the shaft frictions of both piles are mostly developed in the top 15 m of the pile length. These results, again, are similar to that obtained from the method conrming that there is a strong correlation with the shear displacement of the pile soils interface with the greatest value of fmax /N at the pile head due to the largest shear displacement at this portion. The values of fmax /N then decrease from the top of the pile to the pile tip, as a lesser shear displacement at a deeper depth where the soil is less mobilised. Figure 8 shows a plot of fmax /N against the measured shear movement at the pilesoil interface at test loads of

650, 1300, 1950 and 2600 kN with the trend line added. A strong linear correlation is noted between the shear displacement and the value of fmax /N for shear displacement up to 3 mm where the portion of the piles is in the elastic zone such that the soil at the pilesoil interface behaves elastically as that in an idealised pilesoil interface model in Figure 1 proposed by Misra and Chen [9]. From Figure 8, it can be observed that the soil starts to behave plastically when the shear displacement exceeds about 6 mm, and this is smaller than the value of 8 mm as observed from the method.

Figure 7.

Variation of fmax /N values for instrumented piles. (a) Pile no. 19 and (b) Pile no. 22.

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C.Y. Kan et al. shown in Table 1) for the whole length; instead, the average mobilised shaft friction should be used. The average value of mobilised fmax /N was found to range from 3.9 to 4.1 for the two instrumented shaft-grouted piles in this project using shaft-grouted frictional mini-piles formed by the Symmetrix method.

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to record their thanks to the Director of Architectural Services for his kind permission of publishing the paper, and to the sta in the Architectural Services Department, Hong Kong SAR Government for their help in preparing the manuscript. Figure 8. Relationship between fmax /N values and shear displacement.

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Notes on contributors
Ir Kan Chun-Yuk graduated from the University of Hong Kong with a rst-class honours degree in 2001. Since then, he joined the government as a graduate engineer, and became a member of the Hong Kong Institution of Engineers (HKIE) in 2006. He also obtained his masters degree major in structural engineering part time from the University of Hong Kong. He has been involved in a number of challenging projects, including the International Wetland Park and Tin Shui Wai Public Library cum Indoor Recreational Centre (both of which won structural excellence awards by HKIE). He is now a Structural Engineer in the Architectural Services Department of the HKSAR Government (Arch SD), and is the project structural engineer responsible for the foundation design and construction of the redevelopment of the former Hollywood Road Police Quarters. Ir Wong Chi-Tong is the Chief Structural Engineer of the Architectural Services Department of the HKSAR Government (Arch SD) responsible for the redevelopment of the former Hollywood Road Police Quarters. He graduated from the Hong Kong Polytechnic in 1976, and also obtained his masters degree major in structural engineering part time from the University of Hong Kong. Since graduation, he undertook civil and structural engineering training at Palmer and Turner and became a chartered engineer in 1980. Ir Wong joined the government in 1981 working in Arch SD responsible for the design and construction of various types of building structures. He has completed many school buildings, markets, oces, indoor game halls, swimming pool complexes and sport grounds. He has a wide range of experience in using dierent construction materials, e.g. concrete, structural steel and glass. He has published a number of papers on his empirical ndings in predicting the load-carrying capacity of percussive piles using CAPWAP in HKIE Transactions, and has delivered his research ndings related to landll settlement, human-induced vibration, piling vibration, cathodic protection, etc. at numerous seminars and conferences.

It can, therefore, be concluded from the results of the and N -value methods that the variation of and N -values which being the largest at the pile head and then decreasing with depth is due to the dierent soil movements at the pilesoil interface along the length of pile. Moreover, plastic behaviour of the soils at the pilesoil interface was observed when the shear displacement exceeds about 8 and 6 mm for the and N -value methods, respectively from Figures 6 and 8. Such observed values of shear displacement of 68 mm for plastic soil behaviour of the two instrumented piles generally tally with observations provided by Luo et al. [11] and Lei and Ng [5] for full mobilisation of the pilesoil interface friction. Concluding remarks (1) There is a strong correlation between the measured shaft friction and shear displacement along the depth of piles by both and N -value methods. The shaft friction was found to be the greatest at pile head and then decreases with depth due to a larger shear displacement at the top portion of the pile. The shaft friction at a deeper depth was not fully mobilised due to the lesser shear movement between the pile shaft and the soil. (2) From the test data of the small diameter frictional piles of this site, the soil starts to behave plastically when the shear displacement exceeds about 68 mm as observed from the curves in Figures 6 and 8 which generally tallies with the observations provided by Luo et al. [11] and Lei and Ng [5] for full mobilisation of pilesoil interface friction. (3) In order to allow for the elasto-plastic zone of a pile, frictional piles should not be designed with the full mobilised friction (e.g. 7.9 9.8 N kPa for the two instrumented piles in this project as

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Ir Leung Man-kit graduated from the University of Hong Kong in 1984. Since then, he joined the government as a graduate engineer. He became a chartered engineer, and at the same time, completed four masters degrees in dierent disciplines. He has been involved a wide variety of building projects, including hospitals, police stations, indoor game halls, swimming pool complexes and sport grounds. He is the Senior Structural Engineer responsible for the redevelopment of the former Hollywood Road Police Quarters. His current research is on human-induced and percussive piling vibration.

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[8] [9] [10]

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