Load–Displacement Behavior of Driven Piles in Sand Using CPT-Based Stress and Strain Fields

The bearing capacity of piles is often estimated by a variety of methods such as the limit equilibrium or the limit analysis. In contrast, the load–displacement behavior, which should not be disregarded in common practices, cannot be obtained as simply as the bearing capacity. The reason is its dependency on the stress and the strain (or the displacement) fields around the pile. In the current work, attempt has been made to predict the load–displacement behavior of driven piles in sand by direct and indirect implementation of the cone penetration test (CPT) data into the displacement field. CPT often serves as a very successful in situ test which provides a close link between the soil resistance and the bearing capacity, although it brings no direct information. A rather simple procedure is presented to indirectly use the CPT data to find the stress and strain fields. While the pattern of the failure mechanism has been obtained by the method of stress characteristics, the displacement (and strain) field has been found by the kinematics of the failure mechanism. The proposed procedure has been calibrated and verified by 98 case histories including pile load test results in conjunction with CPT data. Comparisons made by this new method show that the CPT-based method of stress characteristics can be successfully used in load–displacement prediction of driven piles.