Lateral cyclic loading of single piles in sand

Abstract

A number of tests have been carried out in the last few years at the LCPC centrifuge facility to study the behaviour of laterally loaded piles. This paper presents a centrifuge test programme of lateral cyclic loading of a single pile in sand. In these tests, the pile head fixity is free and the pile is eccentrically loaded since the point of load application is above soil surface (2.2 times the pile diameter). The experimental set up, the data acquisition and the processing techniques are described. Analyses are focused on the influence of cycles on the soil-pile interaction, on the pile head displacements, on the bending moments and on the P-y reaction curves.