3M Analytical Method: Evaluation of Shaft Friction of Bored Piles in Sands

This study presents 3M, an analytical method potentially employable in design practice to estimate the skin friction of bored piles in sands. It is based on the fundamental mechanic behaviour of sands and keeps track of the major mechanisms occurring in the soil close to the pile during loading. These include the development of a shear band, its potential expansion, as induced by soil dilatancy, and the ensuing increment of horizontal stresses due to the restraining effect of surrounding soils. The resulting analytical equations are easy to apply and insert in a worksheet. The procedure to evaluate the shear band expansion is calibrated against results of direct shear tests at constant normal load, while the increment of horizontal stresses is evaluated by the closed-form solution for the expansion of a cylindrical cavity into a dilatant elastic-perfectly plastic medium. The effectiveness of the 3M method in predicting shaft friction has been checked against numerical results, centrifuge and full scale pile load tests. Nevertheless, its use in the design practice needs a preliminary validation against a greater number of well-documented experimental data of load test on instrumented bored piles.