Behaviour of stabilizing piles arranged with different layouts

Stabilizing piles can be designed to increase the safety factor of a landslide (acting as a stabilization countermeasure) or to reduce slope displacements (acting as a protection countermeasure). Equally spaced piles are usually installed, in one or more rows transversal to ground movements, adopting a linear arrangement. Since piles must be designed to ensure adequate safety factors for both slope stability and pile structural integrity, the paper focuses on a different plane layout, namely a quincunx array, that can be an alternative design choice. A 2D and 3D numerical study has been developed, with the aim to compare the overall behaviour of a two-layer slope reinforced with one row of piles arranged with linear or quincunx layouts: soil arching effect, ground movements and resisting forces are analysed and discussed in the paper