808 Design of reinforcing piles to increase slope stability Harry G. Poulos Abstract: This paper describes an approach for the design of piles to reinforce slopes, involving three main steps: (1) evaluating the shear force needed to increase the safety factor to the desired value: (2) evaluating the maximum shear force that each pile can provide to resist sliding of the potentially unstable portion of the slope; and (3) selection of the type and number of piles, and the most suitable location of these piles within the slope. For step 1, stability analyses can be used to assess the required additional shear Force for stability. Step 2 involves the use of a ‘computer analysis for the response of a pile to laterally moving soil. This analysis can be implemented via a computer program ERCAP, and enables the resisting shear force developed by the ples to be evaluated as a function of pile diameter and flexibility and the relative depth Of the soil movement in relation to the pile length. Step (3) involves the use of engineering judgement in conjunction with the analysis results from steps 1 and 2. The paper describes the ERCAP analysis and the characteristics of pile behaviour it reveals. The application of the approach to a highway bypass problem in Newcastle, Australia, is described in detail. In the final design, a total of 64 bored piles 1.2 m in diameter were used over a total length of slope cutting ‘of about 250 m. The pile lengths ranged between 6 and 12 m, with the spacings varying between 3.2 and 6.0 m. Key words: analysis, boundary element, piles, soil-pile interaction, slope stabilization, soil mechanics. Résumé : Cet article présente une approche de calcul de renforcement de pentes par des pieux selon trois étapes principales : (1) Evaluation de la force de cisaillement nécessaire pour amener le coefficient de sécurité & ta valeur désirée; (2) évaluation de la force de cisaillement maximum que chaque piew peut fournir pour résister au glissement de Ia section éventuetlement instable de Ja pente; (3) choix du type, du nombre de pieux et de la position Ia plus judicieuse de ces pieux Je long de la pente. Pour I'étape 1 on peut utiliser des analyses de stabilité pour apprécier Ia force de cisaillement additionnelle nécessaire & la stabilité. L’étape 2 implique Putilisation d'un ‘ordinateur pour analyser 1a réponse d'un pieu 2 un mouvement latéral du sol. Cette analyse peut étre faite grace au programme ERCAP et elle permet d'évaluer Ja résistance au cisallement développée par les pieux en fonction de leur diaméire et de leur flexibilité ainsi que Ia profondeur relative du mouvement du sol par rapport a la longueur du pieu. L’étape 3 fait appel au jugement de lingénieur et s'appuie sur les résultats des analyses des étapes | et 2, L’article décrit ‘analyse par ERCAP et les aspects du comportement des pieux qu'elle révele, L’application de cette approche & un probleme de route de détournement & Newcastle, Australie, est présentée en détail Dans la conception finale, on a utilisé un total de 64 pieux forés de 1.2 m de diamétre, sur une Tongueur totale d’esearpement de pente d'environ 250 m, La longueur des picux était comprise centre 6 et 12 m, aver un espacement variant entre 3.2 et 6.0 m, Mors clés + analyse, élément frontitre, pieux, interaction sol-pieu, stabilisation de pente, . ‘mécanique des sols. fi (Traduit par la rédaction] investigators (for example, Sommer 1977: Esu and D'Elia 1974; Ito and Matsui 1975; Ito et al. 1982; Nethero 1982; Morgenstern 1982; Gudchus and Schwarz 1985; Reese et al. 1992; Rollins and Rollins 1992). Despite these appli cations, the methods used for the design of the stabiliz~ ing piles vary widely, and some of the methods appear to Introduction ‘One method that has been used to improve the stability of slopes has been via the installation of piles. The st cessful use of this method has been described by several Received November 4, 1994, Accepted May 1, 1995, H.G, Poulos. Coffey Partners International Ply. Ltd., 12 Waterloo Road, North Ryde, NSW 2113, Australis, and School of Civil and Mining Engineering, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia be of doubtful validity ‘The purpose of this paper is to set out a relatively sim- ple framework for the design of the slope-stabilizing piles, and to describe an analysis which may be used 10 quan- tify the response of piles to soil movements arising from Can, Geotech. J. 32: 808-818 (1995), Printed in Canada Imprimé av CanadaPoulos Fig. 1. Model for piles in soil undergoing lateral! movement. 809 (a) Stresses, forces, and ‘moments on pile (by Stresses on soil slope instability. Estimation of the necessary geotechnical parameters is then discussed, and finally application of the design approach to the stabilization of a highway cut- ting in Newcastle, Australia, is described. Design procedure for stabilizing piles The general design approach adopted follows closely that described by Viggiani (1981) and involves three main steps: (1) evaluating the total shear force needed to increase the safety factor for the slope to the desired value; (2) eval: uating the maximum shear force that each pile can pro- vide to resist sliding of the potentially unstable portion of the slope; and (3) selecting the type and number of piles, and the most suitable location in the slope. Step 1 makes use of the detailed results of the stabil- ity analysis. The actual safety factor F* for a slope can be defined as follows ners mae where ER is the sum of resisting forces along the critical fail- ture surface; and Fp is the sum of disturbing forces along that surface. If the actual safety factor F* is less than the target safety factor, F;, the piles must provide an additional resistance AR, so that 2) =3REAR 4 3 From eqs. and 2, BG) AR=2A(F- F) ‘This represents the stabilizing force, per unit width of soil, (6) Specified horizontal rioverment of soil that must be provided by the piles and can readily be cal: culated if 2Fp is extracted from the stability analysis results For step 2, the most satisfactory procedure is to under take an analysis in which the pile is subjected to soil move- ments that simulate the movement of a sliding mass of soil over a stable mass. It should be noted that the safety factor can also be defined in terms of moments along the failure surface, rather than only the forces, e.g., NAVFAC (1986). The principle of the method is the same, regardless of the def- inition of the safety factor. Viggiani (1981) has derived dimensionless solutions for the ultimate lateral resistance of a pile in a two-layer purely cohesive soil profile. These solutions, while being extremely valuable, are limited in the following respects: (i) they apply only to purely cohesive soils in which cohesion of the Unstable and stable soil is assumed constant with depth; (ii) they apply to the ultimate state only and do not give any indication of the development of pile resistance with soil ‘movement; and (iif) they are confined to a simplified rep- resentation of the distribution of soil movement with depth. ‘A somewhat more versatile approach, which enables the above limitations to be overcome, can be developed by using a pile-soil interaction analysis in which the effect of soil moving past the pile can be considered. Such an analysis has been described by Poulos (1973), Poulos and Davis (1980), and Lee et al. (1991) and makes use of a simplified form of boundary element analysis to obtain a solution. A brief description of this analysis is given in the following section. Guidelines for step 3, and in particular the optimal loca- tion of piles in a slope, are not well-established. However, it is clear that, in order to be effective, stabilizing piles must have the following characteristics: (i) they must be of810 Can. Geotech. J. Vol. 32, 1995 Fig. 2. Basic problem of a pile in unstable slope: free-field soil movement. Unstable soil relatively large diameter and relatively stiff; so that a rea- sonably large stabilizing force can be generated without ‘causing failure of the pile; (if) they must extend well below the critical failure surface so that the failure surface is not merely shifted downwards below the pile tips with 2 fac~ tor of safety still less than the target value; and (iif) they should be located in the vicinity of the centre of the crit ical failure circle (or wedge, cic.) to avoid merely relo~ cating the failure surface behind, or in front of, the piles, Method of analysis of pile resistance ‘The lateral response analysis used herein relies on the use of a simplified boundary element analysis. In this case, the pile is modelled as a simple elastic beam, and the soil as an elastic continuum. The basic problem is illustrated in Fig. 1. The lateral displacement of each element of the pile can be related to the pile bending stiffness and the horizontal pile-soil interaction stresses. The lateral dis- placements of the corresponding soil elements are related to soil modulus or stiffness, pile-soil interaction stresses, and free-field horizontal soil movements. A limiting lat- eral pile-soil stress can be specified so that local failure of the soil can be allowed for, thus allowing nonlinear response to be obtained. By consideration of the compatibility of the horizontal movements of the pile and soil at cach element, the fol lowing equation may be derived if conditions at the pile-soil interface remain elastic: ur tr" ao Kyat (O04) (41 [ Die where {D] is the matrix of finite difference coefficients for pile bending; [1 is the inverted matrix of soil displacement factors: K, is dimensionless pile flexibility factor = EVE,L"; Slide Drag” zone Stable Assumed Distribution of Lateral Soil Movement ‘nis the number of elements into which pile is divided; (Ap) is incremental lateral pile displacements; (Ap,) is incremental free-field lateral soil movement; ELis the bending stiffness of pile; E, is average Young's modulus of soil along pile shaft; and Lis embedded length of pile. In addition, the horizontal and moment equilibrium equations, and the pile head and tip boundary conditions, may be expressed in terms of displacements. Afier solving the resulting equations for incremental displacements, incremental pressures may then be evaluated from the equation of bending of the pile and added to the existing pressures to obtain the overall pile—soil pressures. These val tues are compared with the specified limiting lateral pres- sures, and at chose elements where the computed pressure ‘exceeds the limiting value, the compatibility equation for that element is replaced by the pile bending equation, which incorporates the condition that the lateral pressure increment is zero. The solution is then iterated until the computed lateral pressures nowhere exceed the limiting values. A FORTRAN 77 computer program, ERCAP (Earth Retaining Capacity of Piles), has been developed to imple- ment this analysis. ERCAP is a proprietary program, but some details of the theoretical analysis, coding, and data requirements are given in CPI (1992). “The lateral response analysis requires a knowledge of the distributions of lateral soil modulus and limiting lateral pile-soil pressure with depth, and the free-field horizontal soil movements. For problems involving slope instability, a distribution of free-field soil movements such as that shown in Fig. 2 appears to be appropriate. This assumes that fa Targe volume of soil (the upper portion) moves as a rigid body downslope. Below this is a relatively thin zone under- going intense shearing in the “drag zone.” The underly- ing “stable zone” is stationary. The estimation of lateral soil modulus and limiting lateral pile-soil pressure will be discussed later in this paper.Poulos Some observations from the theoretical analysis Analyses employing ERCAP have revealed the existence of the following modes of failure: (i) the “Flow mode,” when the slide is shallow and the unstable soil becomes plastic ‘and flows around the pile; (i) the “short-pile mode,” when. the slide is relatively deep and the length of pile in the stable soil is relatively shallow; the sliding soil carries the pile through the stable soil layer and full mobilization of soil strength in the stable layer occurs; (di) the “intermediate mode,” when soil strength in both the unstable and stable soil is fully mobilized along the pile length; and (iv) “long, pile failure,” which occurs when the pile itself yields because the maximum bending moment reaches the yield moment of the pile section; this mode can be associated ‘with any of the three modes of soil failure above, although experience suggests that it is most likely to occur with the intermediate mode. Figure 3 illustrates characteristics of pile behaviour for the flow mode, the short-pile mode, and the intermediate mode, The results are for a 15 m long steel tube pile with an external diameter of 0.5 m and a wall thickness of 15 mm. In the upper sliding zone, the soil is a clay with an undrained shear strength of 30 kPa, while in the lower “stable” zone, the undrained shear strength is 60 kPa. The soil movement in the slide zone is assumed to be constant with depth and equal to 0.4 m, and no “drag” zone has been considered, The following observations are made from Fig, 3: (7) the ‘maximum shear force in the pile is developed at the level Of the slide plane; (i) for the flow mode, the maximum. ‘moment occurs below the slide plane, in the stable soil and the pile movement is considerably less than the soil ‘movement; (iif) for the short-pile mode, the maximum. moment occurs well above the slide plane in the unstable soil, and the soil and pile movements are similar; and (iv) for the intermediate mode, large moments are devel- oped both above and below the slide zone, and the pile hhead movement can exceed the soil movement. The largest shear force occurs when the soil slide depth is between about 0.5 and 0.6 times the pile length. The effect of yielding of the pile is to reduce the maximum shear force, especially for slide depths between about 0.25 and 0.9 times the pile length. ‘Two important practical implications may be drawn from Fig. 3: Firstly, the flow mode creates the least dam- aging effect of soil movement on the pile; if protection of the piles is being attempted, efforts should be made to promote this mode of behaviour. Secondly, the intermedi- ate mode develops the largest shear force and bending, ‘moment in the pile; hence, if piles are being used to sta bilize the slope, they should be designed so that the inter ‘mediate mode of behaviour occurs. This can be done by varying the depth of embedment of the pile in the stable zone in the analysis until a maximum value of shear force is found, ‘The soil failure mode will depend on the length, diam- ‘ter, and section of the pile, strength and deformation prop- erties of the pile material, strength properties of the soils in the unstable and stable regions, relative lengths of the pile ait in the unstable and stable regions, and the spacing between adjacent piles. It is possible to develop design charts that relate the resistance developed by piles to the above vari- ables, as described later in the paper. Estimation of soil parameters Key parameters required for lateral response analysis of @ pile are Young’s modulus of the soil, £,, and limiting lateral pile-soil pressure, p,. Assessment of these param eters is usually made on the basis of (i) correlation with strength properties of soil; (ji) correlation with in situ test data (e.g.. CPT, SPT); (iii) in situ test measurements (e.g., via the pressuremeter of the dilatometer); and (i) interpretation of lateral pile load test data, A brief review of some correlations for E, and p, is made below. ‘Young's modulus, E, For clays, Young's modulus E, is usually related to the undrained shear strength ¢, as follows: I] B=ae, Assuming a nonlinear analysis is to be used, so that E, represents a secant modulus for relatively low load levels, the value of a, typically lies between 150 and 400 (Poulos and Davis 1980; Banerjec and Davies 1978; Decourt 1991). For overconsolidated clays, Decourt (1991) suggests the following correlation with SPT value W: [ol £,=2N (MPa) For sands, itis customary to assume that the modulus varies linearly with depth, s0 that mB where < is depth below ground surface, Typical values of 1, for saturated loose, medium, and dense sands are 1.5, 5.0, and 12.5 MPa/m, respectively (Decourt 1991), Kishida and Nakai (1977) relate E, to SPT value N as follows: 8} 1.6N (MPa) Ultimate lateral pressure, p, Ito and Matsui (1975) have developed a theory for flow of soil through a row of piles. Their equations show that the limiting pressure p, developed on a pile by flowing soil depends on the strength properties of the soil, overburden pressure, and the spacing between the piles relative to their diameter. Their equations are meant to apply for the portion Of the piles in the unstable or moving soil. However, the equations are only valid over a limited range of spacings, since, at large spacings or at very close spacings, the mechanism of flow through the piles postulated by Ito and ‘Matsui is not the critical mode. Tn clay soils it is usual to adopt a total stress approach in which p, is related to undrained shear strength c, as follows: mp, where Nis the lateral capacity factor. For a singe pile rina be asvamed to ircace linearly from 2 a the Net812 Can. Geotech, J. Vol. 32, 1995 Fig. 3. Pile behaviour characteristics for various modes. Deflection (m) Moment (kN) ‘Shear (kN) Pressure (MPa) 9 05 -1000 0 1000500 0 500.06 0 06 HLSTFSTS = Soil Slide et z 10 tty 4 is 1 Datcton aa 9 L202 pye dtm (Plow Mode a Shear) Pen cMP) sen coo PSO ogo soo MSY son Ge 7 S f a 4 F 4 g i i ' oh 7S soi 1s Dateaon = 7fb206 py=0.tm (merece Mote Detesion nm) Momen my Stew G0) sue Bateson gy MOS oan son MMHO 500 JES MY = - Slide é mine | { VJ Le —— ee ay eg = 1,ML=09 p,=040m () Short Pile ModePoulos Fig. 4. Typical geotechnical profiles. cout con ° EE chy hy al Gystone _Mv € Site = 6 & | aw-sw 8 Sion Shine 0 ae ss nl Nove: EW = Extremely weathered HW = Highly weathered MW = Moderately weathered SW = Sighily weathers ‘ground surface to a limiting value of N, = 9 at a depth of 3.5 pile diameters or widths and beyond i.e, tio) Ny =2{1+2)+9 where is depth below ground surface; and is pile diameter or width ‘Theoretical studies by Chen and Poulos (1993) provide some indications of the influence of group effects on Ny, Such effects may reduce J, if the piles are arranged in'a Tine parallel to the direction of soil movement For piles in sands, the simplest approach is to use the suggestion of Broms (1964) in which (U1 py =aK,o%0 where K, is the Rankine passive pressure coefficient, K, = tah? (45 + 72); 4 is the angle of internal friction of soil is the effective overburden pressure; 418 a coefficient ranging between 3 and 5 Randolph and Houlsby (1984) have developed an analy- sis for drained conditions in clay in which the coefficient ain eq, I is Ky It is noted by De Beer (1977) and Viggiani (1981) that Jifferent values of the coefficients Nand a in eqs. 9 and 11 may apply for the sliding and stable portions of the soil profile. Typically, the values in the stable soil have been taken to be those given in eqs. 10 and 11 above, while the values in the sliding soil have been taken to be about half of those values. However, other than for the near-surface effects, there appears to be no reason why such differences should exist 813 ‘Table 1, Soil strength parameters adopted for stability analyses. Depth below surface ch’ —Bulk density ) Ps) Vm) Fill Opes 25) 20 0-2 5S 20 2-8 5 2 20 8-11 Qf 20 1+ 2 30 20 Example of application: State Highway 23, Newcastle, Australia In 1990, the Roads and Traffic Authority of New South Wales (RTA) commenced construction of a north-south bypass around the city of Newcastle, Part of this project involved construction of an interchange between State Highway 23 (SH23) and a cross road (Sandgate Road), ‘SH23 was to be located in a cutting about 4.5 m below natural surface level, but in parts of the cutting, fill was t0 be placed for interchange ramps and bridge approach abutments, so that slopes with a total height of up to 8 m were to be created. As described below, stability analyses were undertaken of various sections along the cutting, and ateas were iden- tified in which the factor of safety against instabifity was considered inadequate. In such areas, stabilizing piles were to be installed, and the design of these piles is detailed in the following sections. A number of alternative options for stabilization were also considered, including use of soldier beams, soil nailing, and construction of retaining walls, but the piling option was chosen because it was assessed to be the lowest cost solution, Site conditions A summary of the geotechnical profiles revealed by two Of the boreholes from the site investigation is given in Fig. 4. No in situ test data on engineering properties were available, Four soil or rock units were identified at the site: (2) top- soil, typically 0.3 m thick; (ii) high plasticity clay, rela- tively stiff and probably of residual origin, 1.5~2 m thick; (ii) claystone, fissured and extremely weathered, but with no evidence of slickensides or earlier slips, 5.0~5.5 m thick; and (iv) siltstone; the cored boreholes were terminated in this material, Groundwater levels immediately after drilling were about 2.6 m below the surface, but appeared to become lower with time and were considered to be subject to sea sonal fTuctuations Stability analysis Estimates of the factor of safety against slope instability were made using the following assumptions: (i) the slip surface was circular and Bishop's simplified method of slices was employed; (ii) the water table was assumed to