Adaptability Study of Timber Piles in Soft Soil Foundation Treatment in Western Africa

Abstract

The problem of soft soil foundation is a major technical challenge for the expressway constructions. Based on this, this study takes a China-aid project in western African country of culvert foundation treatment project as the background, and introduces the application of timber pile foundation reinforcement in silty soil area for the culvert, and investigated the piles reinforcement of soft soil foundation principle and its unique physical and mechanical properties. Theoretical calculation and numerical analysis show that the bearing capacity of timber pile reinforced foundation is 24% greater than the design bearing capacity. The theoretical calculated settlement values are good agreement with the numerical values, which all could meet the design requirements. In conclusion, the timber pile reinforced foundation has the advantage of low cost, short construction period and good adaptability to actual conditions etc. Meanwhile, the timber pile foundation has small settlement and provides a high composite bearing capacity and will have broad prospects in the treatment of soft soil foundation in Highway Culvert projects in the future.

Keywords- Highway engineering, Timber pile foundation, Numerical analysis, Soft soil foundation, Composite foundation, Settlement,  Surcharge preloading