Numerical evaluation of the soil behavior during pipe-pile installation using impact and vibratory driving in sand

Pipe-piles are installed using impact or vibratory driving which influences the soil in different ways including the void ratio and stress distribution. Such complex problems are hard to investigate on the field as well as using numerical methods. Here, a sophisticated numerical approach is employed to evaluate the soil behavior during pile installation. Also, a sensitivity analysis on the frequency and the impact duration is done for vibratory and impact driving, respectively. The investigation includes the required force of the pile installation, pile penetration behavior, plugging formation inside the pile, and the change of the soil state including the change in the horizontal stress and density around the pile during the installation. Results of the numerical model show several advantages of vibratory driving over impact driving in the dense sand including, reaching the designated depth using less momentum and work as well as more soil compaction. •An advanced numerical method, Multi-Material Arbitrary Lagrangian Eulerian (MMALE) with the hypoplastic material model.•The numerical model is validated against pipe-pile installation tests.•An analysis on the effects of change in frequency during vibratory driving, and impact duration during impact driving.•The momentum of total applied force-time curve of driving is used to compare between vibratory and impact driving methods.•Several possible advantages of vibratory driving over impact driving are presented.