Instrumentation and Associated Monitoring Program to Measure Drag Force on Driven H-Piles Subjected to Negative Skin Friction

ABSTRACT: The need for infrastructure has increased due to population growth to facilitate economic activities. Piles transfer infrastructure loads to competent ground layers, especially where the surface soil lacks adequate bearing capacity. One of the challenges that may arise in cohesive soils is negative skin friction (NSF), occurring due to the settlement of the surrounding soil relative to the piles. NSF results in an additional axial force on the pile, referred to as drag force which has caused several failure cases in pile-supported structures. This study discusses an instrumentation program, data monitoring and analysis on a 36-meter driven H-Pile located at the edge of the bridge abutment’s foundation on an active project to arrange a measurement approach to better understand the load transfer mechanism along the pile. Associated interpretation, data corrections, and lessons learned are discussed to provide an approach to calculate the axial force distribution.