Study of soil movements around a penetrating spudcan

Abstract

A centrifuge model study has been carried out to evaluate the free field soil movements adjacent to a penetrating spudcan, which aims to facilitate the investigation of spudcan-pile interaction in soft clay. The penetration and extraction of a half-cut spudcan was captured by a digital camera at 100 g. Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) was subsequently applied to evaluate the soil flow pattern around the spudcan and the soil movements in the adjacent field. The results show that the measured free field soil movements are well correlated with the responses of an adjacent free-headed pile. © 2010 Taylor & Francis Group, London.