Overview

This online routine is to introduce the student (be that student graduate, undergraduate or continuing education) to the analysis of driven piles. Further documentation of the features of the program are forthcoming on our website vulcanhammer.net. The documentation for the program is as follows:

• TAMWAVE: Pile Toe Resistance, and Some More on Pile Shaft Resistance
• TAMWAVE 1: Entering Basic Soil and Pile Properties
• TAMWAVE 2: Modifying the Soil Properties
• TAMWAVE 3: Basic Results of Pile Capacity Analysis
• TAMWAVE 4: Shaft Resistance Profile, ALP and CLM2
• TAMWAVE 5: Wave Equation Analysis, Overview and Initial Entry
• TAMWAVE 6: Results of Wave Equation Analysis
• TAMWAVE 7: Analysis for a Cohesive Soil

A basic outline of the program is as follows:

• Enter the basic pile and soil parameters of the system to be analysed. As was the case with the previous effort, only one soil type and consistency is permitted, although the water table can be varied anywhere along the pile shaft.
• The values the program suggests can be then modified, although we urge the user to be careful in doing so. The user can also enter lateral loads if desired.
• The program then constructs a profile of the shaft and toe resistance of the pile, with both static and dynamic properties. The program then does a t-z type analysis of pile for axial load-deflection characteristics, using the ALP program. If lateral loads are entered, the deflection and moment from these is analysed using the CLM2 Method (see below.)
• Finally the program performs a wave equation analysis using a modification of the TTI program with the pile and soil properties previously computed.

This program replaces the original routine which was originally written in 2005 and updated in 2010. The documentation for that effort is here. The program received a major update in 2017 (documentation above) and a minor one in 2021 with the following changes:

• Initial pile length reduced to 50', and initial phreatic surface depth reduced to 25'.
• H-Piles excluded from toe plugging.
• Strain softening coefficient for soil shear modulus increased for more realistic values.
• Toe quake for cohesive soils set to more conventional values, as Tomlinson's method was used to compute N_q.
• Added Davisson's Method line for evaluation of virtual pile load test, and flipped the graph to more realistically simulate actual load-settlement curves.
• Marked the target SRD value differently to make it easier to see.