ABSTRACT
Despite the fact that pile design approaches have advanced enormously within the past few decades, the most fundamental aspect of pile design, that of estimating the axial bearing capacity, relies heavily on empirical correlations, as discussed by Randolph (2003). Many studies have been reported within the past 40 years to improve the pile bearing capacity estimated with dynamic methods during pile driving and testing (e.g., Goble et al., 1967; Goble et al., 1970; Rausche et al., 1972). The results have shown that the variations of bearing capacity with time after the pile initial driving depend on different parameters of the pile and the soil. In the majority of cases, so-called pile setup has been reported with long-term increases of bearing capacity from 50 through 1000 percent of the End-of-Initial-Drive (EOID) resistance (Rausche et al., 2004). Occasionally, soil relaxation has been reported, in which the bearing capacity decreases slightly with time to below EOID.
