Bearing behavior and failure mechanism of squeezed branch piles

Abstract The current practice for the design of squeezed branch piles is mainly based on the calculated bearing capacity of circular piles. Insufficient considerations of the load-transfer mechanism, branch effect and failure mechanism, as well as overreliance on pile load tests, have led to conservative designs and limited application. This study performs full-scale field load tests on instrumented squeezed branch piles and shows that the shaft force curves have obvious drop steps at the branch position, indicating that the branches can effectively share the pile top load. The effects of branch position, spacing, number and diameter on the pile bearing capacity are analyzed numerically. The numerical results indicate that the squeezed branch piles have two types of failure mechanisms, i.e. individual branch failure mechanism and cylindrical failure mechanism. Further research should focus on the development of the calculation method to determine the bearing capacities of squeezed branch piles considering these two failure mechanisms.