Settlement of composite foundation with discrete material pile considering modulus change

Based on deeply discussing the deformation mechanism of composite foundation with discrete material pile, firstly, the settlement of composite foundation in rigid foundation conditions was assumed to consist of two parts, an expanding part and an un-expanding part. Then, in view of the differences of deformation properties between the expanding part and the un-expanding part, the relationships between the pile modulus and the applied load in these two parts were respectively developed. Thirdly, by introducing the above relationships into settlement analysis, a new method to calculate displacement of composite foundation with discrete material pile was proposed by using the multi-stage loading theory and the layer-wise summation approach. This method is effective not only for accounting for the effect of variations of pores on deformation modulus of the pile body in different depths, but also for describing the characteristics of different deformation mechanisms of the pile body with varying depth. Finally, the proposed method was used to a practical composite foundation problem, whose theoretical results were presented and compared to those of other methods. The rationality and feasibility of this method are identified through comparative analysis.