Study on Vertical Bearing Capacity of the Riser Composite Pile in Clay

In order to meet the development need of small-scale marginal oilfield, it is proposed to use the riser and surface casing to bear the loads replacing or partially replacing the steel pipe pile foundation. In this paper, the vertical bearing behavior of variable cross-section composite pile with the diameter of upper part larger than that of lower part (composed of riser and surface casing) is analyzed by finite element method. Then, the influences of different length combinations and diameter combinations of the composite pile on vertical bearing mechanism are studied, and the characteristics of stress concentration at the variable cross-section are revealed. The calculation results show that the increase in pile diameter, pile length and diameter ratio can effectively improve the bearing capacity of riser composite piles. The vertical ultimate bearing capacity of riser composite piles is greatly affected by upper part and less affected by lower part. The bearing capacity of lower part is gradually exerted, as the plastic zone appears at the end of the upper part, meanwhile, the Q-s curve shows as a broken line, which means that a larger pile top settlement is needed in order to effectively activate the bearing capacity of lower part.