Investigations on the lateral bearing performance of field-scale screw piles influenced by heating

Screw piles may demonstrate greater environmental benefits when employed as energy piles. In this study, heat exchange pipes were inserted into screw piles to form energy screw piles, and field tests were conducted on the ultimate lateral bearing capacity of both heated and unheated screw piles to analyze the impact of temperature on the lateral bearing performance. The deflection, bending moment, and shear force behavior of laterally loaded screw piles after heating and the variation in soil resistance around the pile were analyzed by numerical investigations. The results demonstrate that after the short-term heating of the screw pile, the ultimate lateral bearing capacity of the pile increased by approximately 15% with an average temperature rise of 14.3 °C within the pile, while the overall deflection and bending moment of the pile under each level of the lateral load decreased. The positions of the deflection reversal point and the maximum bending moment did not vary significantly with temperature. Under the maximum lateral load, the deflection at the pile top decreased by approximately 11%, the maximum bending moment decreased slightly by about 3%, and the maximum surface soil resistance increased by roughly 5%.