Proposal for calculating the bearing capacity of screw displacement piles in non-cohesive soils based on CPT results

Screw displacement pile technology is relatively new and is still being developed. A specific characteristic of those piles is their very considerable influence on soil properties during the installation, which renders classical bearing capacity calculation methods insufficient. Some methods for calculating the bearing capacity of screw displacement piles have already been presented in literature, for example, by Bustmante and Gianesselli [2], [3], Van Impe [17], [18], Maertens and Huybrechts [15], Ne Smith [16] as well as Basu and Prezzi [1]. This paper proposes a new method of calculating the bearing capacity of screw displacement piles in non-cohesive soil which is based on CPT results. It has been devised as a result of research project No. N N506 432936 [11], carried out in 2009-2011. At 6 experimental sites screw displacement pile static loading tests were carried out together with CPTU tests of the subsoil. The results allowed us to establish soil resistances along the shaft ts as well as under the pile base qb and their correlations to the CPT soil cone resistances qc. Two approaches, both adapted to the general guidelines of Eurocode 7 (EC7) [20], were proposed: a classical approach and the second approach with load transfer functions application.