The application of phenomenological methodology for designing pile foundation in port structures

It is of utmost importance in the design process that a suitable, safe and concurrently economic solution be chosen. Issues connected with foundations require adopting a special approach. Soil is a composite medium, and it is essential to describe as precisely as possible the interaction taking place between the subgrade and the structure. There are many design methods of pile foundation that are based on in-situ test of soils. As a result of incessant development of the pile installation technology, the results obtained with design methods used to date do not assure the required accuracy, and consequently the values of pile load capacity are not sufficiently accurate. A partial solution to this problem may be applying the observation method. Based on assumptions of phenomenology as a science that enable cognition of natural and mathematical phenomena, a procedure has been developed for projecting loading-settlement dependencies for Vibro piles installed in port areas in Poland. Those areas are characterised by similar soil and water conditions, as well as soil genesis and parameters. This procedure enables estimating the limit of load capacity values with much better accuracy than the hitherto used direct methods. The full range of the s(Q) function also enables the possibility of designing structures allowing for stringent criteria of admissible settlements having a specified value.