An efficient approach for settlement prediction of pile groups

The paper presents exact closed form solutions for estimating the settlement of single and group piles in non-homogeneous soil, using a load transfer approach derived from elastic continuum theory. The effects of load transfer factor have been explored in detail to account for the effect of a finite depth of compressible soil and non-homogeneity of soil profiles. Interaction factors between pairs of piles, and overall settlement ratios for pile groups of various geometries, are evaluated from the solutions and are shown to be consistent with those obtained from a full boundary element approach. The solutions are in the form of Bessel functions, However, to facilitate evaluation, a simple program called GASGROUP has been developed. The program can be readily used to predict the settlement of large pile groups. The analysis is quick and efficient, and can be run in a personal computer even for a group of 700 piles. The program is used to predict the single and group pile responses for a number of actual pile groups. The predictions are shown to agree well with the measured data.