Based on the results of conventional triaxial compression tests for a soil, a trilinear elasto-plastic model is proposed to simulate the stress-strain softening curve. According to this curve, the constitutive relation between the bulk strain and two principal strains is established. By using Mohr-Coulomb’s yield criterion as the initial yield function with plastic ?ow phases stage and constructing the rational yield function for the strain softening phase stage, the analytical solutions to the stress, strain, and displacement ?elds for the expansion of cylindrical cavity are presented. Finally, a computational example is used to show the radii of di?erent stress zones and the corresponding internal pressure.
A set of serf-developed apparatus for foundation physical model were utilized to conduct model tests of the multi-element composite foundation with a steel pipe pile and several gravel piles. Some load-bearing characteristics of the multi-element Composite foundation, including the curves of foundation settlement, stresses of piles, pile-soil stress ratio, and load-sharing ratio of piles and soil, were obtained to study its working performances in silty sand soil. The experimental results revealed that the multi-element composite foundation with steel pipe pile and gravel pile contributed more than the gravel pile composite foundation in improving the bearing capacity of the silty fine sand.
Aphysical model facility was designed, built, and setup for conducting model tests on a composite foundation in a soil ground. The model tests were carried out on a composite foundation with different combinations of vertical reinforcement elements in the same soil ground. Via the analysis of the collected data the characteristics of the composite foundation with different reinforcing elements were obtained, including the characteristics of load-settlement curves, column stresses, stresses of the intercolumn soil, pile-soil stress ratio, and load-sharing ratios of columns and soil. Results from the model tests reveal the mechanism of a composite foundation with different reinforcing elements quantitatively. It is concluded that both a composite foundation with a combination of steel pipe pile and sand column and that with a combination of concrete pile and lime column have a higher bearing capacity than the composite foundation with only sand columns with the same conditions of soil ground and loading. A composite foundation with lime column and sand column embodies no much better performance than that with sand colunms only.
