A Study of the Influence of Soil Layer Arrangement On the Oblique Pull-out Capacity of a Pile
摘要
This study investigated the influence of soil layer arrangement and loading inclination on the oblique pull-out behavior of a single pipe pile embedded in homogeneous and layered sand–clay systems. A laboratory testing program was conducted on four soil profiles, including pure clay, pure sand, clay-over-sand, and sand-over-clay, under loading inclinations of 0°, 30°, 45°, 60°, and 90°. The load–displacement response and directional pull-out resistance were evaluated to examine the combined effects of soil type and layer sequence. The results showed that loading inclination significantly affected the pull-out response of all soil profiles. Compared with horizontal loading, the pull-out resistance of pure clay increased by approximately 29% at 45°, whereas pure sand exhibited an increase of about 259% at 60%, demonstrating its greater sensitivity to loading direction. Among the layered systems, the clay-over-sand profile showed a marked improvement under inclined loading, while the sand-over-clay profile consistently outperformed the clay-over-sand profile, demonstrating the beneficial effect of placing the sand layer above the clay layer on resistance mobilization. The normalized polar representations confirmed that pull-out resistance exhibited pronounced directional anisotropy and should be interpreted as a direction-dependent resistance envelope rather than a single scalar value.