End Bearing Capacity of Drilled Shafts in Sand: A Numerical Approach

In this paper, a modeling procedure is carried out to numerically analyze the end bearing capacity of drilled shafts in sand. The Mohr–Coulomb elastic plastic constitutive law with stress dependent elastic parameters is used for all numerical analyses performed in this study. The numerical results are compared with the available experimental equations. It is seen that numerical results are in good agreement with experimental equations. The variation of the end bearing capacity of drilled shafts versus embedment depth is also studied. Numerical results show that with increase in pile embedment depth, the end bearing capacity increases. However, the rate of increase becomes smaller as the pile embedment depth increases. Also, numerical analyses show that, for equal settlement, the end bearing decreases with increase in the pile diameter. Finally, a sensitivity analysis is performed to obtain the separate effect of each sand parameter on the end bearing capacity of drilled shafts, and the parameters that are most influential are identified.