An alternative mechanism of pile failure in liquefiable deposits during earthquakes

Abstract

This paper proposes an alternative mechanism of pile failure in liquefiable deposits during earthquakes. This failure mechanism, based on pile buckling, is formulated by back-analysing 14 case histories of pile foundation performance during earthquakes and verified using dynamic centrifuge tests. A new parameter, the slenderness ratio of a pile, is introduced to classify pile performance in liquefiable soils. This parameter fits very well both the reported case histories and the centrifuge test results.