Discussion of the paper: Stress distributions in rock socketed piles, by A.F. Williams, I.B. Donald & H.K. Chiu

Contrary to the experience of the Authors, the writer has had some success in predicting the stress distribution along a rock socket from elastic theory. This theory was applied to a socket 9.45m long and 610mm in diameter, installed in Philadelphia into a sound mica schist overlain by a layer of alluvium 15m thick, 2m of dense gravel, and 6 to 9m of decomposed mica schist. The details of the subsoil profile and the construction procedure have been described by Koutsoftas (1980). The socket was instrumented with Carson strain meters at six locations, thus enabling the distribution of interface shear stress to be deduced.