Soil-structure interaction in laterally loaded piles

Abdel-Salam, Mohamed Nabeel (1979) Soil-structure interaction in laterally loaded piles. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

[English] PDF (Migrated (PDF/A Conversion) from original format: (application/pdf)) - Accepted Version Available under License - The author retains copyright ownership and moral rights in this thesis. Neither the thesis nor substantial extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's permission. Download (28MB) [English] PDF - Accepted Version Available under License - The author retains copyright ownership and moral rights in this thesis. Neither the thesis nor substantial extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's permission. (Original Version)

Abstract

Lateral loading on piles is a common occurrence in pile-supported structures such as multistoried buildings, large-span frames and arches and electrical transmission towers. A reference to these can be found in classical geotechnical literature. With the expansion of offshore oil and gas production activities into deeper waters, the demand is ever increasing for designing huge structures supported on large piles. Although such piles are also laterally loaded piles, the environmental lateral loads are several order magnitudes larger than that on comparable land-based structures. The ocean soil itself is unique by virtue of its environmental location. The soil - structure interaction problem under these conditions has attracted the attention of researchers during the past two decades. -- Different methods of analysis are available at present for solving the laterally loaded pile problem. A comparison between two theoretical methods, the finite difference and the finite element, is presented here. In this process, a computer program was developed to generate the p-y curves which relate the soil resistance to the pile deflection, in order to idealize the soil - structure interaction. Soil nonlinearity is considered in both methods with the aid of these curves. This p-y curve concept was extended to layered soil systems. New computer programs were developed in addition to adapting an existing one and a comparison was made of the results obtained by the finite difference and the finite element methods. Full scale test results in soft clay, stiff clay and layered soil systems reported in publications were compared with the theoretical solutions. -- A parametric analysis was done to establish the variables which are critical and significant in the behavior of the laterally loaded piles. The effects of 1) pile loading, 2) pile properties, 3) soil properties and 4) soil layering on the maximum deflection and the maximum positive and negative bending moments were examined. Two types of soils, soft clay and stiff clay, representing typical offshore soils were considered in the analysis. Both free and fixed head piles, representing two extreme types of end conditions, were studied. The CALCOMP graph plotter was used to generate all the graphs for the parametric studies. -- Conclusions and recommendations for future research are presented.

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