Experimental and numerical studies of laterally loaded piles located near oil-contaminated sand slope

• Main Authors: Reda A. Abdelhalim, Mostafa El Sawwaf, Ahmed M. Nasr, Ahmed Farouk
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2020-08-01
• Series: Engineering Science and Technology, an International Journal
• Subjects: Sand slope; Contaminated material; Lateral loading; Model tests; Three-dimensional (3D) numerical analysis
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2215098619307396

Oil spillage occurrences are due to wars, accidents, drilling, storage, natural disasters, and rapid industrialization, which lead to huge amounts of waste discharge into adjacent areas. Soil contamination is also detrimental to associated structures and foundations. Therefore, in this research, experimental and numerical studies on laterally loaded piles near an oil-contaminated sand slope were conducted to estimate the ultimate lateral capacity, lateral displacement, and maximum bending moment of a single pile embedded in contaminated and uncontaminated sand slope. To simulate the contamination content as in field conditions, preparation of oil-contaminated layers of sandy soil was performed by blending clean sand samples with heavy motor oil at proportions of 0–6% of the dried weight of soil. These studies were performed by varying the contaminated sand layer thickness (LC), oil content (O.C), pile slenderness ratio (LP/DP) and distance from the slope crest (X) to the pile head. The results demonstrated a considerable reduction in the friction angle (Ø) with increasing oil content. Therefore, the ultimate horizontal load (Hu) of the pile also reduced. Moreover, the raise in the thickness of oil-contaminated sandy soil layer (LC) has resulted in an increment in the lateral movement of the pile (y) and a reduction in the ultimate horizontal load (Hu). When the proportion of the oil content increased to 2% over that in clean sand, the maximum bending moment raised by about 11%. In addition, a good consistency between the numerical analysis and experimental tests was observed.