• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2002.11a
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• pp.1-26
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• 2002

This study addresses preliminary design and construction specification for micropiles. Especially several design methods for micropiles in sands, clays or mixed soil layers are described. The bearing capacity of micropiles are mainly depended upon the shaft resistance. Therefore, the pressure of grouting is one of the most important design parameters for the bearing capacity evaluation of micropile. There is no theoretical way to evaluate the shaft resistance of micropile up to now because grouting method is another key parameter for micropile design approach. Because of above reasons, the present design approaches of the micropile are based on the collected field data The bearing capacities of designed micropiles should be verified by static load tests before and after construction at the planned site.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.29-40
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• 2023

In this study, we investigated the reinforcing effects of waveform micropiles in a stratigraphic setting comprising buried soil, weathered soil, and weathered rock. We conducted a series of field load tests and determined that waveform micropiles exhibited sufficient bearing capacity through frictional resistance in the soil layer and demonstrated favorable constructability in conditions with deep bedrock layers. Moreover, the vertical stiffness of waveform micropiles was approximately 2.2 times higher than that of conventional micropiles when subjected to the same design load. Pile group load tests comprising conventional and waveform micropiles showed that micropiles with higher stiffness carried a greater proportion of the load. Although there was no significant difference in the bearing capacity between conventional and waveform micropiles under the same design load, waveform micropiles with higher stiffness showed a load-carrying capacity 1.7 to 3.2 times greater than that of conventional micropiles. These findings suggest that waveform micropiles can be effectively used for foundation reinforcement and reduce the risk of foundation failure when increased loads due to modifications such as expansion remodeling are expected.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2004.03b
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• pp.538-543
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• 2004

Micropile has been widely used for reinforcing general grounds, improving slope stability and structural foundations. However, a need still exists for evaluating the effects of inclined micropiles on shallow foundations in Korea. In this paper, numerical analyses were presented to evaluate settlement characteristics on shallow foundations reinforced by micropiles and the effects of inclined micropiles under various conditions such as the installation position, installation angle, hardness(diameter), and grouting type. In addition, this paper reports trends of effectiveness and efficiency of using inclined micropiles on shallow foundations under specified conditions.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2001.03a
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• pp.355-362
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• 2001

Since micropiles were conceived in Italy in the early 1950s, which have been widely used for In-situ reinforcement, bearing pile or the concept of combination in the world-wide. The meaning of micropiles usually differs from that of a general deep foundation. Because the load capacity of it was mainly affected by skin friction. Also, it could be obtained the improvement effects of load capacity or ground's rigidity by the unitary behavior of ground and micropiles. In this study, The model tests were peformed on the dense sand where micropiles are set to the vertical direction. Strip footing was used in it. Steel bars of dia. 2 and 4㎜ were used in model tests of which the sand was attached on the surface, and the length of it was changed as 2B to 6B(where, B is width of strip footing) Through this process, the load capacity were analyzed from the test results in the relationship between load and displacement.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.31 no.2
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• pp.197-208
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• 2022

Micropiles consisting of steel bars and grouts are commonly used in underpinning methods to reinforce supports or to suppress the subsidence of existing structures. Recently, applications in the field of geotechnical engineering have expanded. Despite the increasing use of micropiles are used, the PHC or steel pile formula is still applied for the settlement amount of micropiles. Compared with field test results, the amount of micropile subsidence obtained from the existing method may result in a very large error in the displacement of the micropile. Therefore, it is difficult to utilize micropiles effectively. Hence, to solve this problem, this study evaluated the behaviors and support characteristics of micropiles through field compression and tensile tests, and proposed a method for predicting the amounts of their subsidence. To confirm the appropriateness of the proposed method, field test results and the results obtained using the proposed method were compared. It was found that the settlement amounts of the micropiles as predicted through the existing method were significantly overestimated (error ≈ 50-80%) relative to the field test results, whereas the settlement errors of the piles predicted through the proposed method decreased (error ≈6-32%). Thus, it is possible to reduce the previously overestimated amount of settlement, and the modified method of this study allows more efficient design than the conventional method.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.5-14
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• 2007

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the normalized behaviors of existing bridge foundations reinforced by micropiles. In order to do numerical method a finite element program was used to predict the micropile behavior and quantify their reinforcing effects on existing bridge foundations. In addition, the installation effects of battered micropiles on existing foundations were compared with vertically reinforced bridge foundations. Based on the study performed, it was found that the use of battered micropiles more efficiently reduces displacement of existing foundations than vertically installed micropiles under vertical and horizontal loadings, respectively. The batter angle of micropiles was also found to be most effective at about $15^{\circ}{\sim}20^{\circ}$ in reducing the vertical displacement. The horizontal reinforcing effect continues to be larger with an increase in batter angles. So, it is believed that the results presented could give an idea to enhance In-service performance of existing bridge foundations reinforced by micropiles.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.19-29
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• 2012

Pack micropiles were recently developed to improve pile capacity of general micropiles. Pack micropiles were made by warping thread bar or steel pipe of general micropile by geotexlile pack and grouting inside the pack with pressure. According to the pressure, the boring hole could be enlarged. A series of pile uplift tests were performed on three micropiles. Two out of the three piles were the pack micropiles and the other was the general micropile, in which a thread bar was used in the boring hole. According to the pressure applied to the pack micropiles, the diameter of boring hole was enlarged from 152 mm to 220 mm. Unit skin friction mobilized on side surfaces of micropiles increased with displacement of pile head and reached on a constant value, which represents that the relative displacement between piles (or thread bar) and soils was reached on critical state. And the uplift resistance of pack micropile was higher than that of general micropile. Two reasons can be considered: One is that the frictional surface increases due to enlarging diameter of boring holes and the other is that the unit skin friction could increase due to compressing effect of surrounding soils by soil displacement as much as the enlarging volume of boring hole. The compression effect appeared at deeper layer rather than surface layer. The unit skin friction mobilized on micropiles with small diameter was higher than the ones on large bored piles.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2006.03a
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• pp.514-519
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• 2006

The purpose of this study is to evaluate the performance of existing bridge foundation reinforced by battered micropiles. In order to do numerical method using a Finite element program was used to predict the micropile behavior and quantify their reinforcing effect to existing bridge foundations. In addition, effect of battered micropiles on existing foundations was compared with vertically reinforced bridge foundations. Based on the study performed, it was found that the use of battered micropile is more efficiently reducing displacement of existing foundation than vertically installed micropiles under vertical and horizontal loadings respectively. The batter angle of micropile was also found effective about $15^{\circ}\sim20^{\circ}$ to reduce the vortical displacement. The horizontal reinforcement effect is continuously larger with an increase in batter angle. So, it is believed that the results presented could give an idea to enhance in-service performance of existing bridge foundations reinforced by micropiles.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.7 no.5
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• pp.477-493
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• 2014

This study examines the behaviour of single micropiles subjected to axial tension or compression load in collapsible loess under in-situ moisture content and saturated condition. Five tension loading tests and five compression loading tests on single micropiles were carried out at a typical loess site of the Loess Plateau in Northwest China. A series of laboratory tests, including grain size distribution, specific gravity, moisture content, Atterberg limits, density, granular components, shear strength, and collapse index, were carried out during the micropile loading tests to determine the values of soil parameters. The loess at the test site poses a severe collapse risk upon wetting. The tension or compression load-displacement curves of the micropiles in loess, under in-situ moisture content or saturated condition, can generally be simplified into three distinct regions: an initial linear, a curvilinear transition, and a final linear region, and the bearing capacity or failure load can be interpreted by the L1-L2 method as done in other studies. Micropiles in loess should be considered as frictional pile foundations though the tip resistances are about 10%-15% of the applied loads. Both the tension and compression capacities increase linearly with the ratio of the pile length to the shaft diameter, L/d. For micropiles in loess under in-situ moisture content, the interpreted failure loads or capacities under tension are 66%-87% of those under compression. However, the prewetting of the loess can lead to the reductions of 50% in the tensile bearing capacity and 70% in the compressive bearing capacity.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.67-77
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• 2017

In the present study, uplift load carrying behavior of micropiles with installation angle and pile spacing was investigated based on uplift load tests using single and group micropiles. In addition, evaluation methods of uplift load carrying capacity of group micropiles were proposed based on FHWA (2005) and Madhav (1987) and they were compared with test results to confirm the validity of proposed methods. From the test results, uplift load carrying capacities of single and group micropiles increased with the increase of the installation angle up to $30^{\circ}$, whose values also increased slightly with increasing pile spacing. For the proposed method based on FHWA (2005), the estimated values were similar to measured values up to $15^{\circ}$ of installation angle and 5D of pile spacing. For the proposed method based on Madhav (1987), on the other hand, it was observed that the estimated values were in good agreement with measured values in all installation conditions.