Behaviour of bored piles in expansive clay

Four reinforced concrete piles, of the same length and shaft diameter, but having different shaft-soil interface conditions, were constructed in late 1993. The test piles were located at an extremely reactive clay site where moisture regimes, of the soil movements, soil properties, pile movements and pile strains.

Computer modelling has commenced in order to simulate and better understand pile behaviour. The types of numerical analysis being investigated include an elastic thermomechanical model (that is, no pile-soil slip is possible). The paper summarises the experimental observations to date and provides preliminary results of the theoretical modelling.