Field Test Study on Construction Disturbances of Driven Pile and PGP Pile
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsThe study investigates the impact of pre-bored grouted planted (PGP) piles versus driven piles in soft soil areas through a comprehensive field test. It reveals that PGP piles generate significantly lower excess pore pressure and noise levels compared to driven piles. The soil pressure and lateral displacement also vary with depth and soil type, with PGP piles exerting less influence. Additionally, PGP pile construction demonstrates less vibration and offers a valuable reference for selecting construction methods in soft soil regions, emphasizing its potential environmental advantages over driven piles.
The presented research findings hold significant relevance to the engineering community, particularly for those involved in pile construction and geotechnical engineering. This study's comprehensive field test and detailed analysis offer valuable insights into the comparative performance of pre-bored grouted planted (PGP) piles and driven piles in soft soil areas, shedding light on their disturbance effects and environmental impact.
With the minor revisions implemented, it is recommended to publish this research, as it holds the potential to make a substantial contribution to the existing body of knowledge in this field. The following comments have been provided for consideration:
1. Figure 1 should be updated to include latitude and longitude coordinates, and efforts should be made to enhance the readability of the legend.
2. Section 2.1, focusing on geological conditions, should include more comprehensive details regarding the types of field tests conducted and the methodology used to derive shear strength and stiffness parameters as presented in Table 1.
3. A careful reconsideration is needed for the definition of friction angles in Table 1, as the currently reported values appear exceptionally low.
4. In Section 2.2, it is advisable to include accurate drawings and cross-sections of the pile to improve clarity and understanding.
5. Figure 5 should provide clarification regarding whether it illustrates active pressure increment, static behavior, or passive behavior. Additionally, an explanation is needed for the discrepancy between Fig 6.a, which shows lateral movement towards and away from the soil, and Fig 5a, where this behavior is not reflected.
6. Section 3.4 appears to lack physical significance beyond an attenuation effect in terms of acceleration, peak particle velocity (PPV), or displacement. It is suggested to plot peak ground acceleration (PGA) against distance to demonstrate attenuation, thereby making it more relevant and informative for the engineering community.
7. In Figure 10, it is advisable to include any permissible limits for noise values, if applicable. This addition will provide context and help readers assess the significance of the noise data.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Comments and Suggestions for AuthorsCorrect the numbers of figures 4 and 9.
The location of the measurement sites in the plane should also be presented in Fig.3.
Why does the horizontal axis start at different times?
Figures 4 and 9a are illegible. According to the reviewer, these figures should be divided into several figures. Some experimental results shown in some figures should be explained in more detail.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
Comments and Suggestions for Authors*************************************************************
* Review comments for applsci-2661652-peer-review-v1 *
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A recent comparative field test was conducted to study the disturbance effect of pre-bored grouted planted (PGP) piles and driven pile construction in deep soft ground. The results showed that the excess pore pressure generated by both types of piles decreases with the increase of radial distance, and the influence range is less than 7.5 d (d is pile diameter). The maximum excess pore pressure generated by PGP pile construction was found to be about 100 kPa smaller than that generated by driven pile construction. The comparison of soil pressure and lateral displacement between the two piles was found to be related to the depth and soil type. Generally, the soil pressure caused by PGP pile construction was found to be half that of the driven pile, and the maximum lateral displacement of the PGP pile was 50.7~53.8% of that of the driven pile. During PGP construction, the noise generated was lower but continuous, and the maximum value at the same distance was reduced by 8 to 15% compared to the driven pile. The authors hope that these test results could provide a reference for the selection of pile construction methods in soft soil areas.
Overall, the paper is somehow well-prepared and the results are presented and discussed in a clear manner. My general score to this research work is now 4/10; however, in the next revision, it is important to focus on addressing the following major issues that need to be seriously improved:
- It seems that the authors did not effectively communicate the originality of their work in their presentation. The novelty of their work was not clearly demonstrated and it is questionable! Commonly, in the last paragraphs of the Introduction section, the novel features of the work are displayed by the authors based on the current literature and other authors’ works.
2. Have the authors attempted to check some of the obtained results from the experimentations with those of theoretical models? According to the provided content of the present paper, it is free from any related formulations, which is commonly not suggested for a technical/engineering-based research paper.
3. For structural analysis of the piles and their interactions with the nearby medium (soil), they are commonly modeled based on the Euler-Bernoulli, Timoshenko, and higher-order beam theories, and for taking their interactions with the nearby soil, the soil is modeled by an elastic layer with one or two parameters (i.e., Winkler or Pasternak foundation model). For lower levels of the slenderness ratio, the role of the shear deformation on the obtained results becomes important and the necessitate to shear deformable beam models are highly required, particularly when the interactions of the pile with the surrounding elastic soil will be considered. By this virtue, the authors are encouraged to display this crucial effect in the paper as well.
4. Under the given Comment~3, there are some numerical models in the literature based on the meshless methods (EFG, RKPM, and so on), which are superior to the finite-element approach, that have been developed for static, buckling, and vibrational analyses of beam-like elements with the Pasternak foundation layer (like the understudy piles here). Since the paper suffers from any theoretical formulations, the following works, which are mainly related to pile-soil-interactions, can be explained by the authors in the paper:
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s11012-015-0184-2.
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.engstruct.2021.112453.
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s11012-014-9957-2.
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compositesb.2018.08.089.
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amc.2014.01.015.
- https://doi.org/10.3390/sym15101827.
5. Only two pile types have been used and all the reported results are based on only two piles, which makes it difficult to obtain solid results and interpretations. At least 3 piles from each group of driven pile and PHP pile should be tested and then we can solidly propose some trends and conclusions. How the authors can handle this crucial issue?
6. In the presence of many influential factors (stress and excess pore pressure as the main unknown field of the soil medium; and geometrical properties of the pile (depth and diameter) and mechanical properties of soil (saturation, friction angle, cohesion, and so on)), the need for application of effective approaches to predict the main unknown fields of the soil under various conditions is highly realized. By this virtue, artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning (DL) algorithms can be effectively used to fill these scientific gaps. This issue should be highlighted in the paper by displaying the following crucial works on these algorithms and applications:
- Hu, X., Kuang, Q., Cai, Q., Xue, Y., Zhou, W., Li, Y. A coherent pattern mining algorithm based on all contiguous column bicluster
- Du, H., Du, S., Li, W.: Probabilistic time series forecasting with deep non-linear state space models.
- Zhang W, Phoon KK. Editorial for Advances and applications of deep learning and soft computing in geotechnical underground engineering.
- Zhang, Z., De Luca, G., Archambault, B., Chavez, J., Rice, B. Traffic dataset and dynamic routing algorithm in traffic simulation.
- Zhao H, Ma L. Several rough set models in quotient space.
- Hsiao, I. H., Chung, C.Y. AI-infused semantic model to enrich and expand programming question generation.
- Chen, J., et al.: Matrix-based method for solving decision domains of neighbourhood multi-granulation decision-theoretic rough sets.
By providing this information, readers can gain a deeper insight into the topic and make informed decisions regarding the use of the algorithm in their own work for future research works.
7. The findings of the authors reveal that there exists a linear decreasing relationship between the excess pore pressure ratio (umax/sigma_v) and radial distance at various depths for PGP piles; however, this result was NOT carefully compared with those of driven piles from various points, including the rate of decreasing (slope) and the level of the plotted curve. Could the authors provide some comparison investigations on this for driven piles in the same figure to show the privileges of using the PGP with respect to the driven piles?
8. If we use a group of PGP piles instead of a single one, how the plot of excess pore pressure in terms of the radial distance will be placed compared to a fairly single pile, as demonstrated in Figure 8? Please clarify that technically.
9. How can the findings of this study be applied to future construction projects for better structural/geotechnical resistance? Please explain in the paper.
10. The future works have been not explained by the authors. Since this paper will be read by interested scholars, giving some crucial guidelines for some important and hot issues will be surely beneficial.
11. The text’s English suffers from many grammatical errors and style typos, in which some of these mistakes are listed as follows:
ü Line 32, “Since 1980s” à “Since the 1980s”.
ü Line 33, “Japanese scholar” à “Japanese scholars” or “A Japanese scholar”.
ü Line 35, “favourable” à “favorable” (The spelling of favourable is a non-American variant. For consistency, it should be replaced with the American English spelling).
ü Lines 35&36, “Chinese scholar” à “a Chinese scholar” or “Chinese scholars”.
ü Line 40, “full filled with” à “fully filled with”.
ü Entire paper, “bearing capacity” à “load-bearing capacity”.
ü Line 41, “capacity characteristic” à “capacity characteristics”.
ü Line 47, “penetrates into the soil layer” à “penetrates the soil layer”.
ü Line 49, “different pile construction method” à “different pile construction methods”.
ü Lines 50&51: “takes longer time” à “takes a longer time”.
ü There are some wordy/lengthy sentences that should be suitably split into shorter ones.
ü There are some badly constructed sentences, from both grammatical and technical points of view, that should be suitably revised.
As is seen, the whole paper should be carefully checked against various errors and typos.
If the authors can answer the questions raised in a rational manner, I can review the revised version of the paper again and provide further comments if necessary. However, if all of the raised questions are addressed properly, I may recommend the paper for publication. At this stage, it is highly recommended the authors to focus on addressing the technical issues, referencing the above related works, and providing their technical answers and modifications in the paper.
Comments on the Quality of English LanguageThe text’s English suffers from many grammatical errors and style typos, in which some of these mistakes are listed as follows:
ü Line 32, “Since 1980s” à “Since the 1980s”.
ü Line 33, “Japanese scholar” à “Japanese scholars” or “A Japanese scholar”.
ü Line 35, “favourable” à “favorable” (The spelling of favourable is a non-American variant. For consistency, it should be replaced with the American English spelling).
ü Lines 35&36, “Chinese scholar” à “a Chinese scholar” or “Chinese scholars”.
ü Line 40, “full filled with” à “fully filled with”.
ü Entire paper, “bearing capacity” à “load-bearing capacity”.
ü Line 41, “capacity characteristic” à “capacity characteristics”.
ü Line 47, “penetrates into the soil layer” à “penetrates the soil layer”.
ü Line 49, “different pile construction method” à “different pile construction methods”.
ü Lines 50&51: “takes longer time” à “takes a longer time”.
ü There are some wordy/lengthy sentences that should be suitably split into shorter ones.
ü There are some badly constructed sentences, from both grammatical and technical points of view, that should be suitably revised.
As is seen, the whole paper should be carefully checked against various errors and typos.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
