Calculating the Lateral Capacity of a pile
Calculating the Lateral Capacity of a pile
(OP)
How difficult is it to calculate the lateral capacity of a pile by hand using the elastic solution? What would be a good book that shows how the elastic solution is arrived at (i.e. what assumptions are made, what are its limitations...etc.).
Secondly, how closely does the elastic solution methold compare to results using Brom's method.
Thanks in advance.
Secondly, how closely does the elastic solution methold compare to results using Brom's method.
Thanks in advance.





RE: Calculating the Lateral Capacity of a pile
Never compared the Brom's method with elastic method, so not sure about accuracy. Since Teng's book is rather hard to find, why not try Muni Budhu's foundations and earth retaining structures book. He has a free software that will calculate using his method. I checked his against Teng's 1969 method & they are very close.
RE: Calculating the Lateral Capacity of a pile
www.PeirceEngineering.com
RE: Calculating the Lateral Capacity of a pile
I owned this book for many years but only saw this page just recently! It is hard to find page.
Try page 272. Correct, it is 1962-I believe it is the only edition.
RE: Calculating the Lateral Capacity of a pile
www.PeirceEngineering.com
RE: Calculating the Lateral Capacity of a pile
RE: Calculating the Lateral Capacity of a pile
www.PeirceEngineering.com
RE: Calculating the Lateral Capacity of a pile
RE: Calculating the Lateral Capacity of a pile
How closely would the results obtained by using the equations in Teng's book compare with the results obtained using a program such as LPile?
Thanks
RE: Calculating the Lateral Capacity of a pile
Not sure of those two comparisons. However, one one job I had last year, I did the Teng cohesive method (1969) which is not in his 1962 book & I had a required embedment of 14.2 ft. So we built the piers to 14.5 ft.
Then the client requested a finite element analysis as a presentation document and the requied embedment of the FEA analysis showed 14.1 ft. After that, I never questioned Teng's method. I have probably used his method on over dozen jobs in the past 3 years.
RE: Calculating the Lateral Capacity of a pile
www.PeirceEngineering.com
RE: Calculating the Lateral Capacity of a pile
RE: Calculating the Lateral Capacity of a pile
www.PeirceEngineering.com
RE: Calculating the Lateral Capacity of a pile
That page is using Hetenyi's elastic method. It is based on horizontal subgrade modulus. Correct, it will give deflection values but it is not the Teng approcah.
If you go www.steeltools.org there is POLEFDN worksheet by Tomanovich. That spreadsheet has the 1969 method that I use.
Alternatively, if you take an equivalent square beam and support horizontally by vertical subgrade modulus but load it with (cohesion / width) you will get darn close to actual deflection curve. So say, k = 130 pci and loading of (1,000 psf/1.33*0.001 kip/lb) gives deflection of 0.14 inch. In addition you can get the point of fixity and maximum moment.
RE: Calculating the Lateral Capacity of a pile
www.PeirceEngineering.com
RE: Calculating the Lateral Capacity of a pile
RE: Calculating the Lateral Capacity of a pile
Compare to LPile, this method is conservative. This can be understood since LPile adopts non-linear p-y curves in its analysis.
I did analysis for steel pipe pile of 600 mm diameter using both methods, and the allowable lateral capacities corresponding to 1/4" deflection (fixed head) are as follows:
- Chang's method : 11.5 tons
- Lpile : 14 tons
Broms method is for calculating ultimate lateral capacity of pile. Using this method Lateral deflection is unknown