GEOLAB - Transnational Access User Project: PILATUS: Piles under Lateral loading in Unsaturated Soils

Centrifuge testing to investigate piled foundation resilience under mechanical loads and groundwater oscillations in partially saturated soils. Solar panel foundations are typically made of short driven steel piles, and the designing action is the lateral force exerted by the wind on the superstructure (i.e. the Solar Panel). Due to the reduced embedded length, these piles transmit the load from the superstructure to the surrounding soil which is often above the ground water table (GWT) and hence in partially saturated soil conditions. The PI.LAT.US project aims at investigating the interaction between solar panels pile foundations and partially saturated soils by providing high quality and well instrumented centrifuge tests results. Technical info In each centrifuge test, the foundations, including 6 single instrumented piles, are subjected to monotonic horizontal load at constant GWT level (3 piles) and to GWT oscillations under working load (3 piles). Model piles are closed-end aluminium tubes 18mm in outer diameter and 1.5mm thick, the embedment length is 180mm and the load is applied 54mm above the ground surface. Experiments are carried out at 15g using a homogeneous dense Hostun sand deposit, HN38, with a relative density of 75%.