Lateral swelling pressure (LSP) can pose significant threats to the safety and stability of the geo-infrastructure. For this reason, it is necessary to take into account the influence of LSP in the design of geo-infrastructure such as basement walls, retaining walls, pile foundations, and pipelines built within or adjacent to expansive soils upon water infiltration. A relationship is developed to calculate the LSP upon free swelling from the vertical swelling pressure (VSP), which can be measured from conventional laboratory tests. This relationship is extended to calculate (1) the lateral earth pressure (LEP) behind a retaining structure with expansive soils as backfill material, and (2) the uplift friction along a single pile placed in expansive soils upon infiltration. Experimental results from large-scale tests and centrifuge tests from published literature are used to validate the proposed methods. The studies presented in this paper not only highlight the influence of LSP on the geo-infrastructure but also provide simple tools for taking account of it in the conventional geotechnical engineering practice for both saturated and unsaturated expansive soils.

The rigid long-short-pile composite foundation has been increasingly used as an effective and low-cost reinforcement method. The pile-soil interaction in this foundation type is more complicated than that in the equal-length pile composite foundation. In this study, several physical model tests were conducted to investigate the pile-soil synergistic mechanism of the rigid long-short-pile composite foundation. A comparative analysis was conducted of the static load test data of single-pile and long-short pile composite foundations to assess the load-bearing characteristics and stiffness evolution of the composite foundation and pile-soil unit. The result indicated a positive correlation between the pile length and the overall bearing capacity of the single-pile composite foundation. The overall stiffness of the four-pile composite foundation was lower than that of the single-pile composite foundation due to an increase in the areas of the soil stress and the pull-down effect caused by multiple piles. The long pile exerted a greater influence on the overall settlement than the short pile. In addition, the correction coefficients were obtained to determine the pile-soil stiffness of the four-pile composite foundation based on that of the single-pile composite foundation, providing a theoretical reference for the optimal design of composite foundations.

Lateral swelling pressure (LSP) develops when expansive soil volume increment associated with water infiltration is restrained in a confined domain, for example, due to construction of civil infrastructure. In this paper, initially a flowchart is developed to highlight various key factors that influence the LSP mobilization according to lab and field studies collected from previous literature studies. Then extending unsaturated soil mechanics, a theoretical framework is proposed for illustrating the LSP mobilization in the field against retaining structures and pile foundations under different boundary conditions, respectively. An example problem for a basement wall and a pile foundation constructed in a typical expansive soil from Regina, Canada, is presented to illustrate the proposed theoretical framework. The framework and corresponding analysis presented in this paper can facilitate to provide rational designs of geotechnical infrastructures in expansive soils.

The stress and displacement boundary conditions of excavation retaining structures affect the deformation mechanism and movement of the retained soil mass. The soil movement disturbs the load sharing performance and structural integrity of cement‐fly ash‐gravel (CFG) pile composite foundations existing in the vicinity, which merits considerable research work. This article presents results from 3D finite element analyses performed to study the influence of retaining wall rotation on the load sharing characteristics of adjacent CFG pile composite foundation comprising long and short piles. To verify the numerical model, a relatively large‐scale 1 g physical model test was conducted. It is revealed that to arrive at a new static equilibrium during progression of wall rotation, the percentage load sharing ratios of the long and short piles change increasingly while the load proportion carried by the upper soil reduces remarkably. The percentage load sharing characteristics of CFG pile composite foundation are more affected in immediate proximity to the wall than those located at far distance. For the foundation having 3 × 3 long and short piles placed at 3.0–15.0 m away from the wall, the location resulted in a reduction of soil bearing capacity ranging between 1.4 and 7.5% of the total imposed load while the corresponding increase in the % load borne by the long and short pile range was 0.83–4.15 and 0.59–3.36%, respectively. For the other parameters considered in this article viz. pile spacing, subsoil stiffness, cushion stiffness and thickness, and applied working load, the increment in % load sharing of the long and short pile range was 3.45–4.15, 1.3–5.79, 1.48–3.36, 4.15–4.79, and 3.67–4.15% and 3.36–4.67, 1.43–4.99, 1.48–3.36, 3.36–3.64, and 1.38–3.36% of the imposed load, respectively. Moreover, the long piles’ load sharing proportion was higher than that of short piles, and peripheral piles received larger load proportion.