Analysis of the Application of Theoretical Pile Settlements Description Methods

The accurate prediction of the behaviour of piles is a particularly important stage of structural design. The dependence of pile settlement and load is often very important for soil–structure interaction in the design of structures. The distribution of stresses and deformations to the structures above also depends partly on the pile settlement. Therefore, the correct assessment of this stage is important in order to have the correct parameters of the building calculation scheme. Before starting the design of building foundation structures and above-ground structures, geological surveys are carried out. When designing according to Eurocodes, a certain number of field tests must be carried out to verify the design assumptions. The pile static load tests provide load and settlement curves. There are several most common ways to describe these curves in mathematical expressions. And the more these expressions correspond to the results of real tests, the more accurately the behaviour of pile foundations can be described. Based on the real results of pile tests, an analysis of methods for describing pile behaviour is performed. The article presents the most popular methods used to describe load–settlement: quadratic hyperbolics, power law, exponential and rectangular hyperbolics. A statistical analysis of the accuracy of the methods is presented. The accuracy of the four methods studied was determined based on the statistical analysis, and their reliability was discussed. The most suitable dependence for practical design was then proposed.