Earth pressure and sidewall friction acting on an embedded footing in dry sand based on centrifuge tests

Abstract

Earth pressure and sidewall friction acting on an embedded footing are investigated based on dynamic centrifuge tests on a superstructure-footing model that is supported on piles in sand deposits of different densities. For this purpose, a simple method is presented to evaluate not only the earth pressures on the active and passive sides, but also the sidewall friction of an embedded footing. Results show that the total earth thrust, which is defined by the difference in earth pressure between the passive and active sides, and the sidewall friction counter the inertial force transmitted from the superstructure-footing to the pile head. Especially, the total earth thrust in the dense sand case plays an important role in reducing the shear force at pile heads because the difference between the total earth thrust and sidewall friction in the dense sand is greater than that in loose sand.