Cohesive Soils

For cohesive soil layers, the following material properties are required:

• Undrained Shear Strength
• Adhesion Type

Adhesion Types

The following adhesion types are available in RSPile:

• General Adhesion for Cohesive Soils (Tomlinson 1979)
• Piles Driven Through Soft Clay (Tomlinson 1980)
• Piles Driven Through Overlying Sands or Sandy Gravels (Tomlinson 1980)
• Piles Without Different Overlying Strata (Tomlinson 1980)
• User Defined Adhesion

For more information on cohesive soils see the Theory Manual.

Interpretation of Unit Skin Friction (for Cohesive Soils)

In RSPile, the unit skin friction at each depth represents the unit skin friction of a pile having that penetration depth (figure a) as opposed to a fully embedded pile whose unit skin friction is evaluated at that depth (figure b). This is especially important for cohesive soils where the adhesion factor is a function of the pile’s normalized depth. Assuming the first layer is a cohesive soil, in the first case, the adhesion factor is based on the distance from the ground surface to the pile toe whereas in the second case, the adhesion factor is based on the distance from the ground surface to the bottom of the first layer.