Incremental filling ratio of pipe pile groups in sandy soil

Formation of a soil plug in an open-ended pile is a very important factor in determining the pile behavior both during driving and during static loading. The degree of soil plugging can be represented by the incremental filling ratio (IFR) which is defined as the change in the plug length to the change of the pile embedment length. The experimental tests carried out in this research contain 138 tests that are divided as follows: 36 tests for single pile, 36 tests for pile group ($2{\times}1$), 36 tests for pile group ($2{\times}2$) and 30 pile group ($2{\times}3$). All tubular piles were tested using the poorly graded sand from the city of Karbala in Iraq. The sand was prepared at three different densities using a raining technique. Different parameters are considered such as method of installation, relative density, removal of soil plug with respect to length of plug and pile length to diameter ratio. The soil plug is removed using a new device which is manufactured to remove the soil column inside open pipe piles group installed using driving and pressing device. The principle of soil plug removal depends on suction of sand inside the pile. It was concluded that the incremental filling ratio (IFR) is changed with the changing of soil state and method of installation. For driven pipe pile group, the average IFR for piles in loose is 18% and 19.5% for L/D=12 and 15, respectively, while the average of IFR for driven piles in dense sand is 30% and 20% for L/D=12 and L/D=15 respectively. For pressed method of pile installation, the average IFR for group is zero for loose and medium sand and about 5% for dense sand. The group capacity increases with the increase of IFR. For driven pile with length of 450 mm, the average IFR % is about 30.3% in dense sand, 14% in medium and 18.3% for loose sand while when the length of pile is 300 mm, the percentage equals to 20%, 17% and 19.5%, respectively.