Experimental Investigation of the Impact of Necking Position on Pile Capacity Assisted with Transparent Soil Technology

Necking in different positions of a pile body has a significant influence on the bearing performance of a single pile. The transparent soil model experiment was adopted to investigate the impacts of necking positions on the vertical bearing capacity of a single pile and the soil deformation around the pile, and subsequently, the causes of the variation of bearing capacity were analyzed. The results show that the existence of necking does not change the bearing behavior of single pile as pile friction resistance. The bearing capacity of piles decreased by 8.21% and increased by 7.30% when the necking is located in the shallow and middle pile body, respectively, while it did not change significantly when the defects were in the deep part of the pile. The necking position has a significant effect on the deformation and deformation range of soil. The soils at the top, side, and near the end of a pile were mainly influenced by shallow necking, middle necking, and deep necking, respectively. The soils at the location of necking had apparent settlement phenomenon as the piles subsided. The soils at shallow necking’s locations were relatively loose, which reduced the side friction force of piles and finally resulted in a reduction of bearing capacity of a single pile. With the increase of the load, the soil around piles gradually developed penetration phenomenon (large deformation), while the soil at the end of pile moved up against pile settlement, which made the necking soil in the middle denser. The loss of side friction resistance was less than the resistance from the necking, which gave birth to an increase in the bearing capacity of a single pile. It was finally found that the side friction resistance and the resistance caused by necking were the main factors governing the bearing capacity of necking single piles.