Analysis of Piles Subjected to Embankment Induced Lateral Soil Movements

Abstract

Damage to piles supporting structures, bridge abutments, and utilities can occur as a result of the construction of nearby embankments. This is because the lateral displacements resulting from these construction activities can induce forces and moments in the piles. The resulting stresses can be significant particularly when soft soil deposits are present and the lateral soil displacements are large. This paper describes a simplified numerical procedure based on the finite-element method for analyzing the response of single piles to lateral soil movements. The flexural bending of the pile is modeled by beam elements. The complex phenomenon of the pile-soil interaction is modeled by hyperbolic soil springs. A framework for determining the soil parameters for use in the analysis is summarized here. Comparisons are made between the observed behavior of full-scale tests and centrifuge model tests and those computed by the proposed numerical method. Based on parametric studies, empirical design solutions for pile foundation systems at the base of a sloped embankment are presented.