Experimental and Numerical Study of Laterally Loaded Pile Groups with Pile Caps at Variable Elevations

Author(s):  
Michael C. McVay ◽  
Limin Zhang ◽  
Sangjoon Han ◽  
Peter Lai

A series of lateral load tests were performed on 3×3 and 4×4 pile groups in loose and medium-dense sands in the centrifuge with their caps located at variable heights to the ground surface. Four cases were considered: Case 1, pile caps located above the ground surface; Case 2, bottom of pile cap in contact with the ground surface; Case 3, top of pile cap at the ground surface elevation; and Case 4, top of pile cap buried one cap thickness below ground surface. All tests with the exception of Case 1 of the 4×4 group had their pile tips located at the same elevation. A special device, which was capable of both driving the piles and raining sand on the group in flight, had to be constructed to perform the tests without stopping the centrifuge (spinning at 45 g). The tests revealed that lowering the pile cap elevation increased the lateral resistance of the pile group anywhere from 50 to 250 percent. The experimental results were subsequently modeled with the bridge foundation-superstructure finite element program FLPIER, which did a good job of predicting all the cases for different load levels without the need for soil–pile cap interaction springs (i.e., p-y springs attached to the cap). The analyses suggest that the increase in lateral resistance with lower cap elevations may be due to the lower center of rotation of the pile group. However, it should be noted that this study was for pile caps embedded in loose sand and not dense sands or at significant depths. The experiments also revealed a slight effect for the case of the pile cap embedded in sand with a footprint wider than the pile row. In that case the size of the passive soil wedge in front of the pile group, and consequently the group’s lateral resistance, increased.

2017 ◽  
Vol 2017 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Muhammad Auchar Zardari ◽  
Hans Mattsson ◽  
Sven Knutsson ◽  
Muhammad Shehzad Khalid ◽  
Maria V. S. Ask ◽  
...  

Much of the seismic activity of northern Sweden consists of micro-earthquakes occurring near postglacial faults. However, larger magnitude earthquakes do occur in Sweden, and earthquake statistics indicate that a magnitude 5 event is likely to occur once every century. This paper presents dynamic analyses of the effects of larger earthquakes on an upstream tailings dam at the Aitik copper mine in northern Sweden. The analyses were performed to evaluate the potential for liquefaction and to assess stability of the dam under two specific earthquakes: a commonly occurring magnitude 3.6 event and a more extreme earthquake of magnitude 5.8. The dynamic analyses were carried out with the finite element program PLAXIS using a recently implemented constitutive model called UBCSAND. The results indicate that the magnitude 5.8 earthquake would likely induce liquefaction in a limited zone located below the ground surface near the embankment dikes. It is interpreted that stability of the dam may not be affected due to the limited extent of the liquefied zone. Both types of earthquakes are predicted to induce tolerable magnitudes of displacements. The results of the postseismic slope stability analysis, performed for a state after a seismic event, suggest that the dam is stable during both the earthquakes.


2014 ◽  
Vol 580-583 ◽  
pp. 1481-1485
Author(s):  
Wei Hu ◽  
Ya Hui Zhang ◽  
Ying Zhang

Dynamic structural model of saturated soil was introduced, and combining with the finite element program, the finite-infinite element models of end bearing pile foundations was established. Four models of interface between pile and soil including absolutely jointed, slippage, crack, both slippage and crack were considered to study the interface’s effect on pile foundation’s dynamic characteristics. The results were as follows: the interface’s mechanical behavior has a little influence on the distributions of pile section’s shearing stress and horizontal displacement. Pile section’s shearing stress reaches the maximum near the ground surface when interface is slippage or crack, and reaches the minimum ones when interface is absolutely jointed. Horizontal displacement could be divided into two phases and the ground surface is the dividing line. The interface’s behavior greatly changes the distribution of acceleration time-history curve. To different models, the maximum acceleration all appears at the ground surface. On the whole, the interface’s behavior has significant influence on end bearing pile, which should be pay attention in the design from now on.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
Desen Kong ◽  
Meixu Deng ◽  
Yazhou Li

In order to investigate the bearing characteristics of inclined straight alternating pile groups under vertical and horizontal loads, the indoor model test of 2 × 2 inclined straight alternating pile groups with two layers of soil on low pile caps was carried out, the manufacturing method of inclined straight alternating pile groups was studied, and the test scheme was reasonably designed. In the test, the fast maintenance load method was used to simulate vertical loads, and the horizontal force loading frame was designed to simulate horizontal loads. The experimental data were obtained by pasting strain gauges on the pile body, and the computer was used to process the data according to the mechanical formula. The distribution of axial force, lateral friction resistance, and end resistance of each characteristic pile of the pile group foundation was obtained, and the settlement law of the pile group was analyzed. At the same time, combined with the test data and the existing theories, the interaction mechanism between pile caps, piles, and soil of inclined and straight alternating pile groups is discussed. The load sharing characteristics between piles and pile caps are analyzed, and the horizontal load is in the proportion between straight piles and inclined piles. The stress characteristics of straight piles and pile groups in the pile group system are compared and analyzed, and some valuable conclusions are obtained.


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (10) ◽  
pp. 800
Author(s):  
Miloš Marjanović ◽  
Mirjana Vukićević ◽  
Diethard König

Marine and harbor structures, wind turbines, bridges, offshore platforms, industrial chimneys, retaining structures etc. can be subjected to significant lateral loads from various sources. Appropriate assessment of the foundations capacity of these structures is thus necessary, especially when these structures are supported by pile groups. The pile group interaction effects under lateral loading have been investigated intensively in past decades, and the most of the conducted studies have considered lateral loading that acts along one of the two orthogonal directions, parallel to the edge of pile group. However, because of the stochastic nature of its source, the horizontal loading on the pile group may have arbitrary direction. The number of studies dealing with the pile groups under arbitrary loading is very limited. The aim of this paper is to investigate the influence of the arbitrary lateral loading on the pile group response, in order to improve (extend) the current design approach for laterally loaded pile groups. Free head, flexible bored piles in sand were analyzed through the extensive numerical study. The main hypothesis of the research is that some critical pile group configurations, loading directions, and soil conditions exist, which can lead to the unsafe structural design. Critical pile positions inside the commonly used pile group configurations are identified with respect to loading directions. The influence of different soil conditions was discussed.


Author(s):  
Mohammad Habibi Parsa ◽  
Payam Darbandi

A new approach for manufacturing of shell fender is proposed and has been examined numerically and experimentally. The new suggested method is based on sheet hydroforming process, which has a lot of advantages over conventional deep drawing process. After defining the shape of initial blank using an inverse finite element program, numerical evaluation of the proposed sheet hydroforming process for production of shell fender has been carried out using an explicit finite element code considering fluid pressure, boundary conditions and tools. Then experimental evaluation has been carried out using down sized specimen and the results have been compared with results of previous simulations. It has been shown that there are similar trends between finite element and experimental results.


2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahdy Khari ◽  
Khairul Anuar Kassim ◽  
Azlan Adnan

Grouped and single pile behavior differs owing to the impacts of the pile-to-pile interaction. Ultimate lateral resistance and lateral subgrade modulus within a pile group are known as the key parameters in the soil-pile interaction phenomenon. In this study, a series of experimental investigation was carried out on single and group pile subjected to monotonic lateral loadings. Experimental investigations were conducted on twelve model pile groups of configurations 1 × 2, 1 × 3, 2 × 2, 3 × 3, and 3 × 2 for embedded length-to-diameter ratiol/d= 32 into loose and dense sand, spacing from 3 to 6 pile diameter, in parallel and series arrangement. The tests were performed in dry sand from Johor Bahru, Malaysia. To reconstruct the sand samples, the new designed apparatus, Mobile Pluviator, was adopted. The ultimate lateral load is increased 53% in increasing ofs/dfrom 3 to 6 owing to effects of sand relative density. An increasing of the number of piles in-group decreases the group efficiency owing to the increasing of overlapped stress zones and active wedges. A ratio ofs/dmore than6dis large enough to eliminate the pile-to-pile interaction and the group effects. It may be more in the loose sand.


2014 ◽  
Vol 919-921 ◽  
pp. 183-187
Author(s):  
Ming Chen ◽  
Zhi Bin Feng ◽  
Zhou Zhou ◽  
Ya Long Wang ◽  
Qiang Zhang

Cold-formed lipped channel sections may fail in local, distortional and overall buckling under compression. With the development of computer technology, finite element analyses of these sections play increasing important roles in engineering practice for economic design and time-saving purpose. A kind of typical cold-formed lipped channel beam-column with varying load eccentricity was analyzed in this paper by using the finite element program of ANSYS to observe the buckling modes and load carrying capacities of the columns. All the results can be the reference for further studies.


2008 ◽  
Vol 45 (7) ◽  
pp. 1006-1017 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. G. Kong ◽  
L. M. Zhang

Piles in a pile group subjected to torsion simultaneously mobilize lateral and torsional resistances. Hence, complicated pile–soil–pile interaction effects and load deformation coupling effects occur in the pile group. In this study, a series of centrifuge model tests were carried out to investigate these effects in three-diameter spaced 1 × 2, 2 × 2, and 3 × 3 pile groups subjected to torsion in both loose and dense sands. The test results showed that the effect of horizontal movement of a pile on lateral behaviors of its adjacent piles is significant in 3 × 3 pile groups and such effect varies with group configuration and pile position. The p-multiplier concept can be used to quantify the effect and values for the p-multiplier are suggested. The effect of lateral movement of a pile on the torsional resistances of its adjacent piles and the effect of torsional movement of a pile on the lateral resistances of its adjacent piles were found to be minor in these tests. For an individual pile in a pile group subjected to torsion, the mobilized lateral resistance was found to substantially increase the torsional resistance of the pile. Such a coupling effect is quantified by a coupling coefficient, β, which describes the contribution of subgrade reaction to the increase of torsional shear resistance.


Author(s):  
Anthony M. Cerminaro ◽  
Frederick C. Nelson

A rotordynamic finite element program has been modified to include internal viscous and hysteretic damping. A numerical study has been done on a rotor system with variable external damping to predict the effect of various amounts of internal viscous and hysteretic damping on rotor stability. Three cases are considered: (1) external viscous damping with internal viscous damping; (2) external hysteretic damping with internal hysteretic damping; and (3) external viscous damping with internal hysteretic damping.


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