Ultimate Lateral Resistance to Piles in Cohesionless Soils

Several methods are available for predicting the ultimate lateral resistance to piles in cohesionless soils. However, these methods often produce significantly different ultimate resistance values. This makes it difficult for practicing engineers to effectively select the appropriate method when designing laterally loaded piles in cohesionless soils. By analyzing the lateral soil resistance distribution along the width of the pile and based on the test results of model rigid piles in cohesionless soils collected from the published literature, a simple method is proposed for calculating the ultimate lateral resistance (including frontal soil resistance and side shear resistance) to piles in cohesionless soils. The calculated ultimate lateral resistance from the proposed method agrees well with that obtained from centrifugal tests of flexible model piles. Predicting the lateral load capacity of laboratory and field rigid test piles in cohesionless soils using the proposed method also yields satisfactory results.