What is Pile Tip Area for Calculating Point Bearng Capacity for H-Piles in Sand?

[Beanbag1]

Greetings.

Is anyone familiar with the FHWA (Nordlund) empirical method for designing H-piles in sand?

I see that the "box" area (4-sided perimeter area) is to be used for calculating side friction resistance. But I am unclear as to which area to use for calculating the toe bearing resistance. Should it be the actual cross-sectional area of the H-pile, or the 4-sided box area around the H-Pile?

Thank you,

 

[EireChch]

I am not familiar with the method but I have never seen H piles designed with the flange thickness area taken as base area. Take the four sided box area.

 

[SlideRuleEra]

...FHWA (Nordlund) empirical method for designing H-piles in sand...

But I am unclear as to which area to use for calculating the toe bearing resistance. Should it be the actual cross-sectional area of the H-pile, or the 4-sided box area around the H-Pile?

See FHWA "Design & Construction of Driven Pile Foundations - Volume I", page 245 (extract from discussion of the Nordlund method).

If you are not sure which area to use, must be time for a load test or (for a small number of piling where cost of a load test is prohibitive) lower pile loading for skin friction only, ignoring point bearing.

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