Experimental Study of Axially Loaded Pile Group Near a Sloping Ground

Understanding the axial loading response of pile group located near the crest of the slope is of practical value to structural design. In this paper, a large-scale test setup (1.8 m x 0.90 m x 0.90 m) has been developed to investigate the response of pile group (2 x 2) located near the crest of the slope under axial loading. This paper presents a series of physical modelling tests performed to investigate the effects of slope angles, distance of the pile group from the slope crest, embedment length of the pile group and pile diameter on the axial loading response of pile groups. The results show that the response of pile group located near the crest of the slope approaches to the level ground condition with increasing edge distance from slope crest. In addition, the horizontal displacement of pile group towards the slope face increases with decreasing distance of pile group from the slope crest or embedded length of piles or with increasing slope angle. Furthermore, increasing pile diameter results in a low increase in the horizontal displacement for edge distances less than 3 dp (dp = pile diameter). However, the horizontal displacement is almost independent of pile diameter at edge distances greater than 3 dp. Higher embedded length results in the response of pile group approaches to the response of pile group located on the level ground at a shorter edge distance from the slope crest.