m-PISE: A novel numerical procedure for pile installation and soil extraction. Application to the case of Leaning Tower of Pisa

This article introduces a new procedure to model two cases related to the simulation of the movements of the Tower of Pisa: installation of micropiles and soil extraction. Standard FEM requires geometry definition in the initial configuration. In this case the initial configuration is much different from the final one. m-PISE procedure overcomes this limit. Previous models based these two simulations on a back-analysis procedure. In m-PISE the volume changes are the same as the extracted or injected in-situ, providing a forecasting of the movements. The results obtained through this new procedure show very good agreement with the measured data.