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Parametric Study and Centrifuge-Test Verification for Amplification and Bending Moment of Clay–Pile System Subject to Earthquakes

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This paper examines seismic effects on fixed-head, end-bearing piles installed through soft clay. The numerical analyses were conducted using ABAQUS with a hypoelastic constitutive model for the clay. The dimensionless parameters involving the major parameters such as pile modulus, soil modulus, slenderness ratio, natural frequencies of clay layer and pile–raft, superstructure mass, density of the soil and peak ground acceleration were obtained from the parametric studies. The relationships for the amplification of ground motions and the maximum bending moment in the pile were developed based on regression of the numerical data. The computed results from the proposed relationships were compared with the results reported in the past studies.
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ORIGINAL PAPER
Parametric Study and Centrifuge-Test Verification
for Amplification and Bending Moment of Clay–Pile System
Subject to Earthquakes
Subhadeep Banerjee .Minu Joy .Debdeep Sarkar
Received: 5 June 2014 / Accepted: 29 February 2016
ÓSpringer International Publishing Switzerland 2016
Abstract This paper examines seismic effects on
fixed-head, end-bearing piles installed through soft
clay. The numerical analyses were conducted using
ABAQUS with a hypoelastic constitutive model for
the clay. The dimensionless parameters involving the
major parameters such as pile modulus, soil modulus,
slenderness ratio, natural frequencies of clay layer and
pile–raft, superstructure mass, density of the soil and
peak ground acceleration were obtained from the
parametric studies. The relationships for the amplifi-
cation of ground motions and the maximum bending
moment in the pile were developed based on regres-
sion of the numerical data. The computed results from
the proposed relationships were compared with the
results reported in the past studies.
Keywords Earthquake Piles Clays
Amplification Bending moment
1 Introduction
Many major cities such as, Shanghai, Bangkok,
Mumbai, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta and Singapore are
built overlying soft clay. As a result many important
inland and offshore structures such as bridges, port and
harbours, tall structures like water tanks, chimney etc.
are supported on pile foundations to achieve the
required bearing capacity. In such situations, the
response of pile and surrounding soil subjected to
earthquake loading is an important factor affecting the
integrity of infrastructures.
In past, there are various analytical, experimental
and numerical studies reported on the response of piles
subjected to seismic loading. Nikolaou et al. (2001)
and Tabesh and Poulos (2007) presented design charts
and empirical forms of bending moments and shear
forces developed along the pile length during the
passage of seismic waves through soil. They have also
suggested that the response of soil-pile system is
generally affected by the soil and pile modulus, the
peak ground acceleration, the frequency of base
excitation and the superstructure loading (Kavvadas
and Gazetas 1993; Nikolaou et al. 2001; Tabesh and
Poulos 2007).
However it was noted that the majority of the
research in this field is concentrated to the seismic
S. Banerjee (&)
Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of
Technology Madras, Chennai 600036, India
e-mail: subhadeep@iitm.ac.in
M. Joy
Geotechnical Engineering Division, Department of Civil
Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras,
Chennai 600036, India
e-mail: mail2sban@gmail.com
D. Sarkar
Department of Civil Engineering, Bengal Engineering and
Science University, Shibpur 711103, India
e-mail: sban345@gmail.com
123
Geotech Geol Eng
DOI 10.1007/s10706-016-9999-4
analysis of piles and pile groups embedded in sand.
Nevertheless Wilson (1998) noted that the piles in firm
cohesionless soils generally perform better during
earthquakes than those in soft clay. Hence, there is a
need to study the response of soil-pile system embed-
ded in clay subjected to earthquake loadings.
The present paper describes the details and results
of parametric study carried out for short piles embed-
ded in homogenous clay layer. The present research
comprises of four major components: (1) a parametric
study based on the numerical analyzes of a clay–pile
system, (2) identification of dimensionless groups
affecting the seismic clay–pile response, (3) develop-
ment of the predictive relations for the maximum
bending moment and amplification of seismic waves,
(4) comparison of the developed correlations with the
results published in the past literatures.
2 Numerical Simulation of Clay–Pile–Raft System
Three-dimensional finite element analysis of the clay–
pile–raft system was carried out using ABAQUS v6.8.
Figure 1shows the 2 92 pile–raft system embedded
in normally consolidated kaolin clay subjected to far-
field earthquake motion. The engineering properties of
the kaolin clay as reported by Goh (2003) were
adopted in the study and are shown in Table 1. Each
pile of diameter 0.9 m and length 13 m is rigidly
connected to a raft (12.5 m 97.5 m 90.5 m) on top.
Table 2shows the different types of piles used in the
study. The pile to pile spacing ‘s’ is chosen such that
s/d ratios in the direction of shaking were approxi-
mately 11.67 and 6.11 along the direction of the
seismic excitations. The piles are widely spaced to
minimize the group effect. By considering the geom-
etry and loading symmetry, half of the prototype was
modeled using the 20 noded quadratic brick elements
(Fig. 2). However it is widely accepted that the solid
brick elements, where strain energy derived from
displacement formulation of finite element analysis is
smaller than the exact strain energy of the mechanical
system, may exhibit extremely rigid behaviour due to
over-estimation of structural stiffness. To avoid such
transverse shear locking reduced integration was used
(Bathe 1996). The nodes on the vertical plane of
symmetry were restrained against any horizontal
displacements in the direction normal to this plane,
and as well as in other two rotational degrees of
freedom. The remaining three vertical faces, as well as
the base of the mesh, were restrained against vertical
motion. The effect of superstructure was considered as
additional masses (Table 3) lumped at the raft level.
Pile was modeled as linear elastic material. The input
ground motions were applied at the base of the
numerical model as prescribed acceleration time
histories. The vertical planes of symmetry were
restrained in horizontal direction. All the other three
vertical faces as well as the base of the model were
restrained in vertical direction.
2.1 Soil Model
It is well established that the stress–strain behavior of
natural soils during earthquake loading is highly
12.50 m
500 mm sand
layer for
drainage path
25 m
13.25 m
0.9 m
14.25 m
12.50 m
7.5 m
1.0 m
Pile in cross-
section
Kaolin clay
Fig. 1 Clay–pile–raft system used for numerical simulations
Table 1 Geotechnical properties of kaolin clay (After Goh
2003)
Properties Range
Bulk unit weight (kN/m
3
)16
Water content (%) 66
Liquid limit (%) 80
Plastic limit (%) 40
Compression index 0.55
Recompression index 0.14
Coefficient of permeability (m/s) 1.36 910
-8
Geotech Geol Eng
123
nonlinear and the shear modulus generally decreases
with increase in shear strain (Hardin and Drnevich
1972). Moreover it is also noted that the degradation of
shear modulus with shear strain, or shear stress,
significantly influences the performance of a founda-
tion system (Snyder 2004). This is particularly
important when a pile is subjected to lateral loading
in which the shear strain in the surrounding soil
progressively increases (Zhu and Chang 2002).
In the present study, ABAQUS in-built hypoelastic
stress–strain model is used to define the soils that
exhibits nonlinear, but reversible, stress strain behav-
ior even at small strains. The constitutive law for a
hypoelastic solid can be shown as,
drij ¼2Gdeij þm
12mdekkdij

ð1Þ
where Gand mare the shear modulus and Poisson ratio
respectively, corresponding to the stress (r
ij
) and
strain (e
ij
) tensors with d
ij
=1when i=j, and d
ij
=0
when i=j. Physically, Eq. 1indicates that the model
considers the shear modulus of soil degrades hyper-
bolically with respect to increasing shear strain within
the soil mass. Vucetic and Dobry (1991) presented sets
of design curves for variation of modulus reduction
with strain amplitudes for different plasticity index
(Fig. 3). These well-established data sets were used to
derive the values of shear modulus corresponding to a
specified strain and used as inputs to the constitutive
model. The plasticity index of 45 % was chosen for the
typical analysis.
2.2 Input Earthquakes
The earthquake motions considered were the typical
far-field events from previous Sumatran earthquakes
with long periods and long duration as measured at
bedrock level in Singapore (as in USGS database).
Three synthetic ground motions, which were gener-
ated using the response spectra of such earthquakes,
were used in the study (Yu and Lee 2002). The input
ground motions having identical frequency content
and duration were scaled to different peak ground
accelerations (PGA) of 0.022, 0.07 and 0.1 g respec-
tively (Fig. 4). In the present paper three ground
Table 2 Different types of piles used in the numerical simulations
Pile material Length of pile (m) Diameter of pile (m) Slenderness ratio (l/r) Flexural rigidity,
EI (kN m
2
)
Hollow stainless steel 13 0.9 28.89 3,545,002
Hollow stainless steel filled with PCC 13 0.9 28.89 4,285,785
Solid stainless steel 13 0.9 28.89 10,308,351
Flexible beam
Nodes/locations where accelerations are
computed
Fig. 2 ABAQUS half-model for clay–pile–raft system
Table 3 Different types of superstructural masses used in the
numerical simulations
Type Prototype mass (tonnes)
Mass-1 368
Mass-2 605
Mass-3 863
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1E-06 1E-05 0.0001 0.001 0.01 0.1
G/G
max
Shear strain (%)
PI=200
.PI=100
.PI=50
.PI=30
.PI=15
PI=NP
Fig. 3 Modulus reduction curves proposed by Vucetic and
Dobry (1991)
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123
motions are referred as PGA-1, PGA-2 and PGA-3
respectively.
2.3 Results and Observations
Figure 5a, b shows the acceleration time histories
computed at the clay surface (5 m from the edge of the
raft) and top of the raft (5 m from the centre of the raft
at the raft surface). Figure 2shows the location at
which the accelerations time histories are obtained.
For this numerical simulation, solid stainless steel
piles with added mass (Mass-3) was used. The model
was subjected to the ground motion of PGA-3. By
comparing the computed histories at the clay surface
and top of the raft with those of the input ground
motion, it is evident that the amplification of ground
motion occurred in both the clay and the structure as
the seismic waves propagate upwards. However,
despite being at the same elevation, there are differ-
ences noted between the acceleration histories com-
puted at the clay and raft, which suggest that the raft
does not move in tandem with the ground. This will be
further examined below.
Figure 5c shows the response spectra for the
computed histories at the clay and raft along with
the response spectra of the input ground motion PGA-
3. At the clay surface, the response spectrum, which
computes accelerations in the clay adjacent to the raft,
shows a resonance period of about 2.28 s. The
response spectrum for raft, as shown on Fig. 5c,
indicates that the resonance period at the surface of the
embedded raft is about 1.68 s. This is about 0.6 s
lower than that measured in the adjacent soil. The
difference in the computed resonance period between
the soil and the structure provides another indicator,
besides the time history plots, that the soil motion may
not be representative of the raft motion. Figure 5cis
replotted in Fig. 5d with the amplification of the input
-0.1
-0.05
0
0.05
0.1
020406080
Acceleration (g)
Time (sec)
PGA-1 = 0.022g
PGA-2 = 0.07g
PGA-3 = 0.1g
Fig. 4 Input ground motions
-0.06
-0.04
-0.02
0
0.02
0.04
0.06
0 5 10 15 20 25
Accelerat ion (g)
Time (sec)
0
0.5
1
1.5
2
01234
Period (sec)
Cla
y
surfa ce
Top o f ra f t
Amplification
-0.15
-0.1
-0.05
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0 5 10 15 20 25
Acceleration (g)
Time (sec)
0
0.05
0.1
0.15
0.2
0.25
0.3
01234
Spectral accelerati on (g)
Period (sec)
Clay surface
Top o f r a ft
Input base motion (PGA-3)
(a) (b)
(c) (d)
Fig. 5 Acceleration time histories, response spectra and
amplification computed for solid stainless steel piles with added
mass (Mass-3) subjected to the ground motion of PGA-3.
aAcceleration time history at clay surface, bacceleration time
history at top of raft, cresponse spectra, damplification
Geotech Geol Eng
123
ground motion (PGA-3) obtained by normalizing the
spectral acceleration at the clay and raft with respect to
the base response. Figure shows that the amplifications
at the clay surface and top of raft are 1.85 and 1.62
respectively.
To measure the bending moment developed along
the pile length, 3-noded quadratic space beam ele-
ments (Timoshenko beam element, B32) were intro-
duced along the centerline of the pile (see Fig. 2). The
flexural rigidity of the beam was chosen as 10
6
times
less than that of the pile so that the beam deformed
freely without interfering with the structural response
of the pile. The actual bending moment was obtained
by multiplying computed beam moments by the
scaling factor of 10
6
. Figure 6shows the typical
maximum bending moment profile plotted along the
pile length. The profile shows that the maximum
moment occurs near the pile head, and reduces along
the pile length to very small value near the pile tip.
Further Fig. 7plots the computed maximum bend-
ing moment envelope for three pile types of different
flexural rigidities with added mass (Mass-1) subjected
to: (a) PGA-1 and (b) PGA-3. As shown in figure, the
maximum bending moment increases with flexural
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
-1000 0 1000 2000 3000
Depth below the bottom of pile-raft (m)
Bending moment (kNm)
Fig. 6 Maximum bending moment profile computed for solid
stainless steel piles with added mass (Mass-3) subjected to the
ground motion of PGA-3
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
-200 0 200 400 600 800
Depth below the bottom of pile-raft (m)
Bending moment (kNm)
0.9m hollow
steel piles
EI= 354 5002 kNm2
0.9m hollow
steel piles filled with PCC
EI= 428 5785 kNm2
0.9m solid
steel piles
EI=103 08351 kNm2
0
2
4
6
8
10
12
14
-1000 0 1000 2000 3000
Bending moment (kNm)
Depth below the bottom of pile-raft (m)
(a) (b)
Fig. 7 Computed
maximum bending moment
envelope for three pile types
of different flexural
rigidities with added mass
(Mass-1) subjected to:
aPGA-1 and bPGA-3
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123
rigidity of the pile. In addition it can also be noted that
the extent of the significant positive moment also
increases with pile stiffness. For the 0.9 m diameter
hollow steel pile, the positive moment terminated at a
depth of less than half a pile length, below which the
induced moments are generally insignificant. The
similar observations were also reported for flexible
piles by other researchers (Poulos and Davis 1980;
Nikolaou et al. 2001). It can also be concluded that the
simulations show that the flexible piles can derive
lateral support even from soft soil. It may therefore be
surmised that, depending upon the relative pile and
soil stiffness, the latter can either provide lateral
support or impose lateral loading on the pile. On the
other hand, in stiffer piles, such as the 0.9 m solid steel
piles shown in Fig. 7, the bending moment decreases
roughly linearly with depth. A small negative moment
is present near the pile toe, but this is much smaller
than the maximum moment at the pile top and is likely
to depend upon the rotational fixity at the pile toe.
3 Formulation of Dimensionless Parameters
Review of literature suggests that the response of clay
and piles subjected to seismic loading is affected by
various factors such as pile modulus, soil modulus,
slenderness ratio, natural frequencies of clay layer and
pile–raft, superstructure mass, density of the soil and
peak ground acceleration (Kavvadas and Gazetas 1993;
Nikolaou et al. 2001;TabeshandPoulos2007;Banerjee
2010). In the present study, five dimensionless groups
involving different parameters are identified as follows:
1. Stiffness ratio (T
p
/T
s
) is the ratio of the time period
of the superstructure without the soil around it to
that of the time period of the soil without any
superstructure.
The pile–raft structure can be considered as a
single degree of freedom system where, m is the
mass of the raft, mass of pile is negligible
compared to raft and EpIpis flexural rigidity of
the pile.
Now, stiffness of the system can be worked out
from simple structural analysis as,
K¼XEpIp
l3
a
ð2aÞ
where Xis a constant whose value depends on the
end condition. Hence predominant time period of
the pile–raft system without soil can be shown as,
Tp¼2pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
mL3
p
3EpIp
sð2bÞ
where L
p
is the length of pile, E
p
is the modulus of
elasticity, I
p
is the moment of inertia and mis the
superstructure mass.
The time period of the soil layer is given by,
Ts¼4h
ffiffi
G
q
qð3Þ
where his the height of the soil layer, Gis the
shear modulus of the soil layer and qis the density
of the soil layer.
2. PGA is the peak ground acceleration of the base
excitation expressed in terms of acceleration due
to gravity (g).
3. Mass ratio (m/qr
p
3
) is the ratio of mass of the
superstructure to equivalent mass of soil. r
p
is the
radius of pile.
4. Frequency ratio (f
b
/f
0
)wheref
b
is the predominant
frequency of the input ground motions and f
0
(=1/T
s
)
is the natural frequency of the clay layer.
5. Slenderness ratio (L
p
/d) is the ratio of the length of
the pile to the diameter of the pile.
4 Parametric Study
A total of 27 numerical simulations involving three
different pile types, superstructural masses and ground
motions were carried out to establish semi-empirical
formulations for amplification at clay surface, top of
raft and maximum bending moment in pile.
4.1 Amplification at Clay Surface (A
s
)
A detail regression analysis shows that the amplifica-
tion at clay surface can be expressed as an exponential
function (Fig. 8) of above mentioned dimensionless
groups as shown in Eq. 4a and 4b.
As¼1:228 e57802xwhere;ð4aÞ
Geotech Geol Eng
123
x¼Tp
Ts

0:4
PGAðÞ
7m
qr3
p
!
0:05
fb
f0

0:6
ð4bÞ
By substituting, f
0
(=1/T
s
)
x¼Tp

0:4Ts
ðÞ
0:2PGAðÞ
7m
qr3
p
!
0:05
fb
ðÞ
0:6
ð4cÞ
It can be noted that the amplification at the clay
surface primarily depend on PGA. It is also observed
from Eq 4c, that the amplification at the clay surface
increase with the increase in time period of clay which
is inversely related to clay stiffness.
4.2 Amplification at Top of Raft (A
r
)
Amplification at the top of raft is expressed asa function
of the amplification at the clay surface. Figure 9shows
the results of the regression analysis as follows,
Ar=As¼1:991 As
ðÞ
0:93 ð5Þ
From Eq. 5it is noted that the amplification at the
top of raft increase with the increase in the amplifi-
cation at the clay surface.
4.3 Maximum Bending Moment Developed
Along the Length of the Pile
In addition to amplifications, the maximum bending
moment developed in a pile is also a key parameter for
the sustainable design. The maximum moment is
represented as a dimensionless formulation, Md/E
p
I
p
where Mis the maximum moment, dis the diameter of
the pile, E
p
I
p
is the flexural rigidity of the pile. The
semi-empirical formulation of the maximum bending
moment obtained by regression analysis (Fig. 10)isas
follows,
Md
EpIp
¼3106z
fg
2:545 ð6aÞ
z¼Tp
Ts

0:4
PGAðÞ
0:3m
qr3
p
!
0:02
fb
f0

0:05
Lp
d

0:2
ð6bÞ
Equation 6a,6b suggests that that the stiffness ratio is
the main factoraffecting the maximumbending moment
response of the pile. It also shows that the maximum
bending moment increases with the pile modulus, peak
ground acceleration and super-structural load. This is in
accordance with the findings of Nikolaou et al. (2001),
Tabesh and Poulos (2007) and Kang et al. (2012).
y = 1.228e
57802x
R² = 0.773
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
0 0.000005 0.00001 0.000015 0.00002 0.000025
y = Amplification at the surface, A
s
x = (T
p
/T
s
)
0.4
×(PGA)
7
×(m/ r
p3
)
0.05
×(f
b
/f
0
)
0.6
Fig. 8 Semi-empirical relationship for amplification at clay
surface
Fig. 9 Semi-empirical relationship for amplification at the top
of raft
Fig. 10 Semi-empirical relationship for maximum bending
moment developed along the length of pile
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123
5 Validation of the Predictive Relations
Preceding discussion shows that the clay and pile
response can be represented as semi-empirical func-
tions of dimensionless groups. The responses com-
puted from the proposed relationships are compared
with the results reported in previous studies.
5.1 Comparison with the Centrifuge Tests Results
by Banerjee (2010)
Banerjee et al. (2007) and Banerjee (2010) reported a
series of shaking table experiments conducted using
geotechnical centrifuge at National University of
Singapore. The shaking table tests were conducted
on the prototypes clay–pile raft model as shown in
Fig. 1. Input earthquake motions and the soil types are
used as the same as that considered in the numerical
simulations. The accelerometers and strain gauges
were used to measure acceleration time histories and
bending moments respectively.
The soil used in the study was Malaysian kaolin
clay of PI =40 %. The corresponding variation of
shear modulus and damping ratio with the shear strain,
as provided by Vucetic and Dobry (1991), were used
as the input to the hypoelastic model.
Figure 11 presents the comparison of the results
computed from the proposed semi-empirical relation-
ship with the results obtained from the centrifuge tests
for the amplification at the clay surface. The fig-
ure shows that, despite the uncertainties involved in
the centrifuge tests, the predicted results matched the
test results with reasonable accuracy. Figure 12 shows
the comparison between the computed and measured
amplifications at the top of raft. The figure shows that
the proposed correlations compares satisfactorily
PGA-2 (0.07 g) and PGA 3 (0.1 g) whereas the
centrifuge results obtained from test with ground
motion of PGA-1 (0.022 g) tends to deviate from the
prediction. However the ground motion with PGA of
0.022 g is too small to be a concern in the context of
amplifications. Figure 13 shows the comparison
Fig. 11 Comparison of amplification at the clay surface
computed from proposed relationship with that obtained from
centrifuge tests (Banerjee 2010)
Fig. 12 Comparison of amplification at the top of raft
computed from proposed relationship with that obtained from
centrifuge tests (Banerjee 2010)
Fig. 13 Comparison maximum bending moments computed
from proposed relationship with that obtained from centrifuge
tests (Banerjee 2010)
Geotech Geol Eng
123
between the bending moments predicted by the
proposed correlation and the measured values
obtained from the centrifuge tests. The figure shows
that the results computed from the proposed correla-
tions matched satisfactorily with the results obtained
from the centrifuge tests.
5.2 Comparison with the Semi-Empirical
Relationship Proposed by Nikolaou et al.
(2001)
Nikolaou et al. (2001) developed a semi-empirical
relationship for maximum bending moment in piles
embedded in layered soils (Eq. 7).
max M0:042asq1h1d3l
d

0:3Ep
E1

0:65 V1
V2

0:5
ð7Þ
where a
s
is the free field acceleration, q
1
is the density
of top soil (soil layer 1), h
1
is the height of the layer 1,
l/d is the slenderness ratio of the pile, E
p
is the modulus
of elasticity of pile, E
1
is the modulus of elasticity of
layer 1, V
1
and V
2
are the shear wave velocities of layer
1 and 2 respectively. In the present study, the soil layer
is homogenous. Hence, V
1
/V
2
=1 and h=13 m
(corresponding to the prototype pile length).
It can be observed from Fig. 14 that the agreement
between the proposed correlation and the formulation
by Nikolaou et al. (2001) is fairly good. The slight
deviations that is observed may be attributed to the
Fig. 14 Comparison between bending moments computed
using proposed relationship and Nikolaou et al. (2001)
Table 4 Different cases considered for the comparison with Poulos and Tabesh’s (1996) analysis
Sl. No. Pile length (m) Pile modulus (MPa) Soil modulus (MPa) Diameter (m) Earthquakes (All the earthquakes
are scaled to a PGA of 0.1 g)
1 12 30,000 50 0.6 Meckering (1968)
2 0.9
3 1.2
4 1.5
5 12 30,000 50 0.9 Whittier (1987)
6 1.2
7 1.5
8 12 30,000 30 0.6 Newcastle (1994)
Fig. 15 Comparison of the bending moments computed from
the proposed relationship with that obtained from Poulos and
Tabesh (1996) for different earthquakes
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123
effect of superstructure mass, which is not taken into
account in the formulation by Nikolaou et al. (2001).
5.3 Comparison with the Analysis Reported
by Poulos and Tabesh (1996)
Poulos and Tabesh (1996) presented an analysis for
the seismic response of single piles ignoring inertia of
piles. Table 4shows the different parameters consid-
ered for the study. Figure 15 plots the bending
moments computed from the proposed relationship
along with Poulos’ analysis. Figure shows that, in
general, good agreement is achieved between the two
analyses.
6 Conclusion
The foregoing discussion suggests that the response of
clay and piles subjected to seismic loading is affected
by various factors such as pile modulus, soil modulus,
slenderness ratio, natural frequencies of clay layer and
pile–raft, superstructure mass, density of the soil and
peak ground acceleration. Several major conclusions
can be inferred from the present study:
1. The amplification of the ground motion primarily
depends on the PGA. The amplification increases
with the increase in peak ground acceleration.
Additionally amplification of the ground motion
also increases with the predominant frequency of
the input motion.
2. An increased amplification at the adjacent clay
surface indicates an increased amplification at the
top of raft.
3. Flexural rigidity of the pile is the most important
factor affecting maximum bending moment.
Besides it is also concluded that the maximum
bending moment increase with the pile modulus,
peak ground acceleration and superstructural load.
4. The developed correlations are favorably vali-
dated with the previously published experimental
results (Banerjee 2010) as well as the numerical
analysis reported by Nikolaou et al. (2001) and
Poulos and Tabesh (1996).
5. However it should be noted that the developed
correlations are valid for fixed-head end-bearing
piles in homogenous clay.
References
Banerjee S (2010) Centrifuge and numerical modelling of soft
clay–pile–raft foundations subjected to seismic shaking.
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... In addition, many major cities in those countries are built overlying soft clay (e.g., Shanghai, Bangkok, Mumbai, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Singapore, etc.) which results in many important structures being supported on pile foundations to provide sufficient bearing capacity and stiffness to minimize settlements. In such situations, the response of the foundation and 1 the surrounding soil subjected to earthquake loading is one of the important factors affecting the integrity of infrastructures [12,174,175]. Indeed, in addition to carrying the vertical compressive loads, piles must also resist to transient or cyclic lateral and uplift loads arising from earthquake, wind, wave, blast, impact or machine loading. ...
... Banerjee et al. [10,11,12] performed a series of centrifuge tests to study the dynamic response of a 2x2 pile-raft system in soft kaolin clay (Malaysian kaolin clay of P I = 40%) ( Fig. 2.16). Short-duration far-field earthquakes were used as base shakings, scaled to different peak ground accelerations of 0.022g, 0.07g and 0.1g. ...
... It was found that the maximum pile bending moment increased almost linearly with the peak ground acceleration of the base shaking, confirming the trend reported by Banerjee et al. [12]. It should be pointed out however that in both studies the tip of the piles rested close to the container base. ...
Thesis
Full-text available
The dynamic response of a structure supported by pile foundations is a complex Soil-Structure Interaction (SSI) problem. Under earthquake loading, the piles are subjected to loadings due to the deformation imposed by the soil (kinematic interaction) and to the inertial forces transmitted by the superstructure (inertial interaction). The design of deep foundations under seismic loadings is often carried out by means of conservative methods that aim to assure zero damage of the foundation. Most of these methods consider the behavior of the foundation as linear elastic. As a result, the capability of the foundation to dissipate energy during seismic loading due to nonlinear mechanisms is neglected. This approach was justified in the past due to the lack of information about the nonlinear behavior of foundations and the absence of adapted numerical tools. Such limitations are becoming more and more obsolete, as a relevant number of experimental and numerical results are now available as well as new design methods (Pecker et al. 2012). In this Ph.D, the behavior of single piles and pile groups under seismic loading is studied using both experiments and finite element calculations. Dynamic centrifuge tests are carried out with a multilayered soil profile, several foundation configurations and a series of earthquakes and sinusoidal base shakings. Nonlinear finite element calculations are also performed and compared to experimental results to investigate the ability of current computational models to satisfactorily reproduce the nonlinear response of foundations. A novel macroelement for pile group foundations under seismic loading is developed and numerically validated. It allows taking into account the group effects and their variation with the loading frequency (pile-soil-pile interaction) as well as the nonlinearity developed in the system. Finally, the macroelement model for pile groups is used to perform an Incremental Dynamic Analysis (IDA) of the main pylon of a cable-stayed bridge.
... The amplification of ground motion is caused by several factors such as scattering, diffraction and interference of input motion (Lee and Trifunac, 2010;Todorovska and Trifunac, 1997). A better understanding of the ground motion amplification is necessary to know the additional strength demand required for structures that stand over soft soil conditions (Banerjee et al., 2016). The peak ground motion and the frequency of motion are two important factors of earthquake motion influencing most of the phenomenon triggered by the earthquake. ...
Article
The response of gravity retaining walls under strong earthquake motions is a topic of concern since large catastrophic failures have become more frequent during earthquake and post-earthquake events. Neglecting the amplification of ground motion along the surface was an important reason for severe damages in the 1985 Mexico City earthquake and the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. In this paper, the response of a gravity retaining wall under different earthquake motions is analysed using a two-dimensional finite-difference method. The strong-motion parameters, peak ground acceleration (PGA) and predominant frequency are particularly investigated. The responses of the retaining wall in terms of the relative horizontal displacement of the wall, active pressure on the wall and response spectra are analysed for input motions with varying PGA and predominant frequency. An empirical equation for the amplification factor at the top of the wall is developed as a function of the PGA and predominant frequency from the observed results. Such an equation can be particularly helpful for rapid assessments of gravity retaining walls in terms of their earthquake resilience and can be assimilated within the design process with relative ease.
... The use of numerical modeling has increased considerably, and it has been used as a tool that allows simulating the behavior of complex structures in real projects. Some models have been developed using different software and constitutive models mainly to evaluate how the pile spacing, load sharing, pile length, and diameter affect the settlement of the foundation (Cui et al., 2010b;Lee et al., 2010;El-Mossallamy, 2008;Roy & Chattopadhyay, 2011;Cho et al., 2012;van Tran et al., 2012b;Rodríguez-Rebolledo et al., 2015;Watcharasawe et al., 2015;Banerjee et al., 2016;Sinha & Hanna, 2017;Zhang & Liu, 2017;Alnuaim et al., 2017;Khanmohammadi & Fakharian, 2018;Luo et al., 2018;Mali & Singh, 2018). Although some of those works consider consolidation analyses, few studies have really focus on simulating the subsidence process in a more precise way using more accurate constitutive models that represent the soil behavior, which can lead to a closer analysis of the system's behavior. ...
Article
Full-text available
In this paper a 3D numerical model using a software based on the Finite Element Method (FEM), was developed and validated using the results obtained in a geotechnical centrifuge model of a piled raft system founded in soft soils undergoing regional subsidence. The piled raft configuration had nine piles distributed in the center of the raft. The kaolin parameters were obtained, calibrated, and validated for the Hardening Soil Model (HSM), based on laboratory triaxial and oedometer test results. Also, a single pile load test was carried out in the centrifuge to get the resistance parameters used in the FEM. The developed numerical model reproduced satisfactorily soil and foundation consolidation displacements due, not only by the structural service load but also by the pore pressure drawdown. For load distribution on piles and raft, the model reproduces with good agreement the foundation behavior only for the structural service load, for pore pressure drawdown some adjustments on the embedded piles elements shaft and base resistance had to be done. The developed model allowed to identify the most sensitive parameters for this type of simulation, to define the types and stages of analysis that had the best fit for the physical model, and to obtain additional results to those measured in the physical model, e.g., the axial load distribution developed along the piles and therefore the magnitude of the negative skin friction, that is an important load that should be considered for the structural safety review of piled foundations subjected to this complex conditions.
... A plane strain model of 50 m height and 40 m width was created in the Lagrangian domain (Fig. 2). The bottom of the model was completely fixed in the vertical and horizontal direction to model a fixed rigid half-space [54][55][56][57][58]. A lateral periodic boundary condition was imposed by constraining the opposite nodes on lateral boundaries to undergo the same displacement. ...
Article
Vibroflotation is one type of ground improvement technique used for liquefaction mitigation in saturated sand. In order to study the feasibility of vibroflotation for liquefaction mitigation, two numerical models were created in the finite element framework. A nonlinear, coupled, hypoplastic u-p formulation was developed to simulate the behaviour of saturated sand. Numerical results were validated against on-field cone penetration test measurements after vibroflotation and centrifuge test simulating seismic site response of saturated sand. Seismic site response of saturated sand before and after vibroflotation was analysed. Saturated loose sand with fines and lower permeability underwent excess pore pressure generation, softening, and possibly liquefaction under seismic loading before vibroflotation. Sands with higher permeability were found to respond better to vibroflotation. The most effective degree of compaction was achieved in dry sands. Vibroflotation of saturated sand with fines ensured improved resistance against liquefaction whereas for coarse sands it led to complete eradication of the liquefaction.
Article
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Equations and graphs for the determination of shear modulus and damping of soils were presented. The equations and graphs were based on test results on both remolded and undisturbed saturated cohesive soils and on clean sands. For various saturated cohesive soils tested, the frequencies were greater than about 200 cps and they were for about 100,000 cycles of loading.
Article
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The passage of seismic waves through the soil surrounding a pile imposes lateral displacements and curvatures on the pile, thereby generating 'kinematic' bending moments even in the absence of a superstructure. These moments are concentrated in the vicinity of interfaces of alternating soft and stiff soil layers and, in the case of restrained-head piles, at the pile head. The scope of this paper is threefold: (a) to critically review some existing design methods for kinematic pile loading; (b) to develop new analytical results for piles in homogeneous and layered soils; (c) to present a case study in which theoretical predictions are tested against field measurements. To this end, an approximate beam-on-dynamic-Winkler-foundation (BDWF) model is implemented, specifically developed for the seismic response of piles in layered soil. Both fixed- and free-head piles, and different boundary conditions at the pile toe, are considered. It is shown that the magnitude of kinematic moments depends mainly on the stiffness contrast between the soil layers, the pile-soil stiffness contrast, the excitation frequency, and the number of excitation cycles. A unique case history involving the instrumented pile foundation of a multistorey building in Japan is presented. Time histories of bending and axial strains recorded at six locations along two piles are successfully compared with results computed from simple formulae and methods presented in the paper.
Article
Full-text available
The pile designer in a seismically active region will generally need to estimate the maximum seismically induced internal moment and shear of the pile in order to provide adequate strength to maintain the structural integrity of the pile. In this paper an effort has been made to provide a simple means of carrying out such an estimation for a single pile embedded in a homogeneous clay layer. The results have been presented in the form of design charts that can be used directly by designers with no or little computational effort. The variables in the design charts include the length and diameter of the pile, the Young's modulus of the pile material, the strength and stiffness of the soil, and the factor of safety against axial failure of the pile. The charts have been obtained from a time domain analysis of pile-soil interaction, and are based on the response of the piles to a range of earthquakes recorded in North America and Australia.
Article
Full-text available
In highly built up areas, an excavation in soft ground invariably will require some form of soil improvement, in addition to the provision of a stiff retaining wall combined with appropriate bracing, to control wall deflection. This is especially so when a thick soft deposit exists beneath the final excavation level, and where the maximum deflection is expected to occur below this level. How- ever, understanding of the behaviour of such an improved soil layer in an excavation is still rudimen- tary, mainly because of the dearth of relevant data from field studies or controlled physical modelling. In this paper, results from careful centrifuge studies are discussed and an overall picture is presented of the behaviour of various configurations of such soil improvement.
Article
This paper examines the seismic response of clay pile-raft system with flexible and stiff piles using centrifuge and numerical studies. Centrifuge studies showed that interaction between pile-raft and clay will cause a significant softening in the clay adjacent to the pile-raft which produced a lengthening of resonance period in near-field soil compared to the far-field soil. The difference of response among the raft and the soil at both near- and far-field indicates that ground motion at both near- and far-field cannot be representative of raft motion. There is also significant difference between flexible and stiff pile response. It has been shown in a previous study that, for stiff pile, the soft clay acts as an inertial loading medium rather than a supporting medium. For this reasons, the bending moment diagram extends deep into the soft soil stratum. However, for flexible pile, the supporting effect of the surrounding clay is much more significant than in stiff pile. As a result, the bending moment envelope for flexible pile under earthquake shaking is very similar to the head-loaded test results, with an active length of pile below which no significant bending moment occurs.
Article
The behavior of pile foundations under earthquake loading is an important factor affecting the performance of structures. Observations from past earthquakes have shown that piles in firm soils generally perform well, while the performance of piles in soft or liquefied ground can raise some questions. Centrifuge model tests were carried out at the National University of Singapore to investigate the response of pile-soil system under three different earthquake excitations. Some initial tests were done on kaolin clay beds to understand the pure clay behavior under repetitive earthquake shaking. Pile foundations comprising of solid steel, hollow steel and hollow steel pile filled with cement in-fill were then embedded in the kaolin clay beds to study the response of clay-pile system. Superstructural inertial loading on the foundation was modeled by fastening steel weight on top of the model raft. The model test results show that strain softening and stiffness degradation feature strongly in the behaviour of the clay. In uniform clay beds without piles, this is manifested as an increase in resonance periods of the surface response with level of shaking and with successive earthquakes. For the pile systems tested, the effect of the surrounding soft clay was primarily to impose an inertial loading onto the piles, thereby increasing the natural period of the piles over and above that of the pile foundation alone. There is also some evidence that the relative motion between piles and soil leads to aggravated softening of the soil around the pile, thereby lengthening its resonance period of the soil further. The centrifuge model tests were back-analyzed using the finite element code ABAQUS. The analysis shows that the simple non-linear hypoelastic soil model gave reasonably good agreement with the experimental observations. The engineering implication arising from this study so far is that, for the case of relatively short piles in soft clays, the ground surface motions may not be representative of the raft motion. Other than the very small earthquakes, the raft motion has a shorter resonance period than the surrounding soil.
Article
A study on the influence of the plasticity index (PI) on the cyclic stress-strain parameters of saturated soils needed for site-response evaluations and seismic microzonation is presented. Ready-to-use charts are included, showing the effect of PI on the location of the modulus reduction curve G/G(max) versus cyclic shear strain-gamma-c, and on the material damping ration gamma-versus-lambda-c curve. The charts are based on experimental data from 16 publications encompassing normally and overconsolidated clays (OCR = 1-15), as well as sands. It is shown that PI is the main factor controlling G/G(max) and lambda for a wide variety of soils; if for a given gamma-c PI increases, G/G(max) rises and lambda is reduced. Similar evidence is presented showing the influence of PI on the rate of modulus degradation with the number of cycles in normally consolidated clays. It is concluded that soils with higher plasticity tend to have a more linear cyclic stress-strain response at small strains and to degrade less at larger gamma-c than soils with a lower PI. Possible reasons for this behavior are discussed. A parametric study is presented showing the influence of the plasticity index on the seismic response of clay sites excited by the accelerations recorded on rock in Mexico City during the 1985 earthquake.
Article
The load-transfer (or t-z) curve, which reflects the interaction between a pile and the surrounding soil, is important for evaluating the load-settlement response of a pile subjected to an axial load using the load-transfer method. Preferably, the nonlinear stress-strain behavior of the soil should be incorporated into the t-z curve. This paper presents a practical approach for the estimation of t-z curves along bored piles by considering the nonlinear elastic properties and modulus degradation characteristics of the soil. A method for evaluating the modulus degradation curve from the results of a pressuremeter test is proposed. The results of load tests on one instrumented bored pile in Piedmont residual soil in Atlanta and another in the residual soil of the Jurong Formation in Singapore provide verification of the validity of the proposed approach.
Article
Studies the kinematic response of free-head piles. Such pile deformation has triggered structural damage in many strong earthquakes. In this Paper dimensionless parametric graphs for pile bending moments are presented which pertain to characteristic two-layer soil profiles. The results are derived by using an existing rigorous dynamic finite-element code, and by implementing a realistic beam-dynamic-Winkler-foundation formulation specifically developed for the kinematic response of piles in layered soil. -from Authors