Ferdowsi Civil Engineering

Ferdowsi Civil Engineering

Study of Bearing Capacity and Settlement Performance of Helical Piles in Sandy Soil under Compressive Loading

Document Type : Original Article

Authors
1 Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Bu-Ali Sina University, Hamedan, Iran
2 Assistant Professor of Engineering Faculty of Khoy, Urmia University of Technology, Urmia
Abstract
Use of helical piles is expanding due to their unique characteristics and special application in engineering projects for foundation improvement. In this research, the bearing capacity and settlement behavior of helical piles in sandy soil under compressive loading were studied through three-dimensional numerical modeling using the finite element method implemented in PLAXIS software. Various parameters of blade plate diameter, pile length, blade plate spacing, and pile spacing in the pile group were investigated. The results of the studies showed that the bearing capacity of helical piles increases significantly compared to conventional piles without blade plates, so that increasing the pile length leads to improved bearing capacity. Increasing the distance between the blade plates improves bearing capacity as long as the pile continues to behave as a unified system and remains within the cylindrical shear failure mechanism; the transfer boundary of the cylindrical shear behavior was obtained at a distance of about three times the blade plate diameter. The minimum distance between the piles in the group to reduce the overlap of the stressed areas was observed to be three times the diameter of the spiral blade. The values and trends of the results obtained from the numerical analysis showed a good agreement with the values of the theoretical analysis.
Keywords

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Articles in Press, Accepted Manuscript
Available Online from 12 September 2026