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Behaviour of Laterally Loaded Bridge Piles In Sand

Conference Paper · December 2017

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 Indian Geotechnical Conference 2017 GeoNEst
14-16 December 2017, IIT Guwahati, India

Behaviour of Laterally Loaded Bridge Piles In Sand

Benazir F. Ahmed
Kaustubh Dasgupta
Arindam Dey
Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, Guwahati – 781039
E-mail: benazir@iitg.ernet.in; kd@iitg.ernet.in; arindamdeyiitg16@gmail.com

ABSTRACT: The behaviour of pile under lateral loading is conventionally studied using empirical p (lateral resistance)
– y (lateral displacement) curves. The empirical curves were obtained from a few specific field tests in the past. In the
present study, the influence of pile-soil interaction and the structural characteristics of pile on p-y curve are investigated
using Strain Wedge Model (SWM) for fixed headed pile with square cross-section. In SWM, the modulus of subgrade
reaction profile, along the pile-soil interface is evaluated based on both soil and pile properties. Further, parametric
studies are carried out with different structural and geometric properties of the pile along with the variation of the
surrounding soil from dry loose sand to dry dense sand. The soil profile is kept uniform throughout the entire length of
the pile. It is observed that both the pile and the soil characteristics tend to influence the soil strain, pile deflection, depth
of the passive wedge of soil and pile head lateral load capacity as well as the nature of the p-y curves.
Keywords: Soil-pile interaction; Strain wedge model; Pile head lateral load capacity; Flow around failure

1. Introduction
The behaviour of pile under lateral loading involves the Table-1 Reference model and the soil properties
influence of soil resistance against lateral deflection of pile
and vice versa. Conventionally, the behaviour is D (m) 0.52 (N/mm2) 40
graphically represented through p-y interaction curves. (%) 4.288 / 0.1
These curves are obtained using formulations based on a
few specific field tests (Matlock (1970), Reese et al. (%) 0.3 (m) 12
(1974)) in the past; these formulations ignore the Loose 30°, γ 16.5 kN/m ,
interaction of pile-soil system along with the structural Type 0.005
.
characteristics of pile. Thus, the traditional curves cannot of Soil
be generalized or prescribed for all possible sets of pile- Dense 40°, γ 19.6 kN/m ,
soil system. SWM (initially developed by Norris (1986) . 0.0025
and improved by Ashour et al. (1998) and Ashour and
Norris (2000)) takes into account the more realistic three-
dimensional soil-pile interaction by relating the soil stress- 2.1 Description of Strain Wedge Model
strain behavior in the developing passive wedge of the soil The SWM is based on multi-sublayer technique, an
in front of the pile to the pile deflection pattern. In this approach in which the number of segments in a pile is the
model, profile along the pile length, L is evaluated same as the number of soil sublayers of constant thickness.
incorporating both the soil and the pile properties. This In this approach, a linear deflection pattern of the pile is
paper aims to obtain more realistic p-y curves of pile-soil assumed from the top to the point of first zero
system using the SWM. Further, a parametric study is displacement (Fig. 1), and hence the soil strain throughout
carried out to illustrate the influence of different pile and the depth of passive wedge is considered constant.
soil characteristics on the p-y curves.

2. Methodology
In the present study, a single fixed headed square pile is
considered to be embedded in dry sandy soil. The pile
length and the surrounding soil are discretized into
segments of constant thickness. The p and y values are
obtained at the middle of each segment using the SWM.
To carry out the parametric study, a reference pile model
is adopted as shown in Table 1,where D is the size of the Fig. 1 Pile deflected pattern, soil-pile reaction along pile
square pile, is the grade of concrete in pile, and length and spring modeling (Ashour et al. (1998))
are the longitudinal and transverse reinforcement ratio
respectively in the pile, / is the axial load ratio To cover the entire range of p-y curve, a small horizontal
with as the axial load on the pile and is the gross soil strain within the developing passive wedge is worked
sectional area of the pile, and are the friction angle on to evaluate all the SWM parameters like the geometry
and unit weight respectively of the soil, . is the soil of the soil passive wedge, deflection pattern of the pile, the
strain at 50% stress level at an overburden pressure of 42.5 lateral resistance in terms of soil-pile reaction p, the
kN/m . All the parameters are varied with respect to this variation of profile along the pile’s length as well as the
model generating the corresponding models. imposing pile head load, (Fig. 1) at each strain level.
1
Laterally loaded bridge pile in sand
The same procedure is repeated with higher values of the
soil strain. As the depth of the developing soil passive
wedge, H, at a particular soil strain is not known initially,
a value is assumed and then solved iteratively until
convergence between SWM and BEF analysis is obtained.
BEF analysis involves the equilibrium of the pile under the
axial and lateral loading (Fig. 2) and is carried out using
the computer program OpenSees (McKenna et al. (2000))
incorporating the profile obtained from SWM at each
soil strain. The coupled equation is expressed in Eq. (1) as,
0, (1)
where, is the bending moment in a pile section, is the
axial load on the pile and is the location of pile section
below the pile head.
The first point of zero deflection along the pile’s depth,
obtained from the BEF analysis is located and
compared with (the assumed passive wedge depth,
H in SWM). Iterations between SWM and BEF are
repeated with an average and the corresponding
pile top deflection, (calculated from SWM (Fig.
2)) until the equality is achieved in Eq. (2) as,
, (2)
Fig. 2 Sub-layering of soil for pile head deflection (Ashour
et al. (1998)) and equilibrium of a pile segment under the
various forces and moments (Reese and Van Impe (2010))
The convergence yields consistent value for H as well as
all the corresponding soil passive wedge parameters, thus
leading to the corresponding p-y values as well as the pile
head lateral load capacity for the given pile-soil system.
The subgrade reaction modulus below the strain wedge is
assumed to increase linearly with depth, and it does not
change with the lateral load applied to the pile (Xu et al.
(2013)). The procedure is repeated for a number of values
of soil strain until the pile-soil system fails.
2.2 Modeling of pile and soil
The pile is modeled with dispBeamColumn element in
OpenSees with the top node restrained in rotation. The
core concrete, the cover concrete and the reinforcing bar
(cold-worked steel of grade Fe415) are modeled with
Concrete06, Concrete07 and Steel02 materials (McKenna
et al. (2000)) respectively. The confined and unconfined
concrete characteristics are obtained using Mander’s
confined concrete model (Mander et al. (1988)) and Chang
and Mander's model (Waugh (2009)) respectively. Both
the tension and compression envelope curves are used to
2
define the spalling strain of unconfined concrete. The
lateral and vertical springs, representing the soil are
modelled using two noded zero-length elements at each of
the pile’s discretised node with the other node having all
the degrees of freedom fully restrained. The evaluated p-y
curves from SWM, t-z curves, q-z curve (obtained using
API RP 2A-WSD (2002)) are modeled with the
MultilinearElastic uniaxial material (McKenna et al.
(2000)) and assigned to those springs.
For evaluating the deflection profile from BEF analysis
satisfying Eq. (1), the pile with given structural details is
analyzed in OpenSees (McKenna et al. (2000)) with the
profile values (obtained from SWM at a particular soil
strain) incorporated within the zero-length elements at the
corresponding discretized pile nodes. Displacement-based
pushover analysis is carried with controlled displacement,
i.e., (Eq. (2)) applied at the pile top node restrained
against rotation, followed by force-controlled gravity
analysis; thus, the corresponding depth of the pile upto the
point of first zero deflection, is obtained. The BEF
analysis is repeated along the corresponding SWM
analysis until Eq. (2) is satisfied.
3. Effect of pile nonlinearity
Nonlinear behaviour in pile causes a change in the pile
head lateral load and capacity response as shown in Fig. 3.
As expected, the difference between the linear and
nonlinear curves is small at lower levels of deflections. For
linear elastic behaviour, development of higher values of
strain in soil can be expected as compared to that with
nonlinear behaviour until the pile-soil system fails with
respect to more number of soil sublayers reaching flow
around failure, thus leading to large pile deflection before
failure. However, with nonlinear behaviour of pile, the
ultimate displacement capacity is limited by the structural
failure leading to the attainment of the ultimate load-
displacement capacity of the system much earlier as
compared to that of the linear elastic pile behaviour. This
is due to mobilization of lower soil strain in a shallower
passive wedge upto structural failure.
Fig. 3. Difference in linear and nonlinear pile response in
sand evaluated through SWM
4. Comparison of p-y curves
The formulations by Reese et al. (1974) and API RP 2A-
WSD (2000) both incorporate only the pile size and the
soil properties like friction angle and unit weight. As SWM
considers nonlinear behaviour of pile and soil, the p-y
curve at any depth generated through SWM becomes
significantly different from the p-y curve developed from
the earlier formulations (Fig. 4). The curves using SWM
have been generated for pile in loose soil (Table 1) at a
Laterally loaded bridge piles in sand
depth of 0.8m below the pile head for two different axial
loads. Using SWM, it is observed that the pile-soil system
sustains larger values of deflection (at ultimate state) as
compared to the earlier formulations (which do not
consider the effects of axial force) upto the attainment of
constant value of soil capacity at the same depth. The
magnitude of soil resistance is also observed to be higher
in case of SWM. Hence, the traditional formulations
underestimate both the lateral load and displacement
capacity for this case of pile-soil system.
Fig. 4. Comparison of p-y curves from different models
5. Parametric study
To carry out the parametric study, all the pile parameters
of the reference model (Table 1) are varied and SWM
technique is applied on each generated soil-pile system to
obtain the corresponding pile head lateral load and
deflection capacity. The following damage or failure
criteria for the system are marked on the generated curves.
The structural damages in the pile are based on material
strain limits.
(a) Flow Around Failure (FAF) in soil
FAF is a local bearing capacity failure that occurs in any
soil sublayer with the tendency of the sand at that depth to
flow around the pile as compared to mobilization of
additional sand to the already developed wedge. It is
controlled by the parameter, / /∆ , where ∆
is the horizontal stress change in the soil. FAF occurs when
reaches its ultimate value Ault (Ashour and Norris (2000))
which is obtained as 14.64 and 28.74 for loose and dense
sand (Table 1) respectively in this study.
(b) First-yield limit state – This limit state marks the end
of elastic behaviour and occurs at the onset of the yield of
the extreme tensile reinforcement in pile.
(c) Ultimate limit state – This limit state corresponds to the
ultimate concrete compressive strain corresponding to the
fracturing of transverse reinforcement in the potential
plastic hinge zone, which results in a sudden drop of
resistance along with physical deterioration.
The influence of variation of some of the salient
parameters on the pile-soil system response are discussed
in the following subsections.
5.1 Density of sand
Shifting from loose to dense sand causes the pile head load
capacity to increase while the ultimate displacement
capacity decreases (Fig. 5). It is due to the fact that pile in
loose sand acts stiffer forming a larger and deeper soil
3
passive wedge at each soil strain, consistent with the
observations of Ashour and Norris (2000). Hence the
displacement upto failure is more in loose sand, but since
the shear strength of dense sand is more, greater load
capacity is developed within a smaller passive wedge of
dense sand. Pile in dense sand attains ultimate damage
state at lesser soil strains as compared to that in loose sand
where higher soil strains get developed before the failure
of the system. In case of loose sand, the system damage is
initiated by the FAF in the first soil sublayer followed by
the damage states in pile whereas the damage states in
dense sand are governed by pile as Ault is high enough to
ensure pile’s structural damages before any FAF. It is
observed that the pile head load capacity is about 55%
more and displacement capacity is 43% less in the dense
sand as compared to the loose sand in the study.
Fig. 5. Behaviour of pile in loose and dense sand
5.2 Size of pile cross-section
Lateral stiffness of pile tends to increase with the cross
sectional size resulting in a larger and deeper soil passive
wedge at each soil strain. This leads to higher lateral
strength as well as displacement capacity (Fig. 6). This
result is consistent with the trend for p-y curves with
varying diameters as obtained from Reese et al. (1974) and
API RP 2A-WSD (2000). For both the cases, the p and y
values increase with pile size before the soil reaches a
constant value of p. Ultimate failure for larger size pile-
soil system occurs earlier resulting in lesser extent of soil
strains getting mobilized. FAF initiates at an earlier soil
strain in case of smaller size pile. Compared to the pile size
of 0.395 m, increments in load and displacement capacities
are observed as 114% and 8% respectively when pile size
is increased to 0.520 m. Similarly, increments of about
431% and 29% in load and displacement capacities
respectively are observed when pile size is increased to
0.734 m in the study.
Fig. 6. Effect of varying pile size on pile-soil response
5.3 Longitudinal reinforcement ratio of pile
With increase in the longitudinal reinforcement ratio of
pile, deeper and larger soil passive wedge gets developed.
Laterally loaded bridge pile in sand
However, higher soil strain gets mobilized in case of pile
with lower reinforcement ratio leading to larger deflection
although with lesser lateral load capacity (Fig. 7). FAF for
the pile with larger steel ratio initiates at an earlier soil
strain whereas, the steel yields at a higher soil strain.
However, the ultimate damage state governed by concrete
strain occurs at a lower soil strain for the pile with higher
ratio leading to smaller displacement upto failure. For the
pile with very low ratio, steel yielding precedes FAF. As
compared to of 2.144%, an increment of nearly 18% is
observed for load capacity and a decrease of 36% is
observed for displacement capacity when is increased
to 4.288%. Similarly, an increase of about 30% in load and
a reduction of 36% in displacement capacity are observed
when is increased to 5.360%.
Fig. 7. Influence of longitudinal reinforcement ratio of pile
on pile-soil response
5.4 Transverse reinforcement ratio of pile
The influence of transverse reinforcement ratio on lateral
load behaviour becomes significant only after the
attainment of the peak load capacity for piles with lower
steel ratios, beyond which the lateral strength and
displacement capacity of the piles increase with the
transverse reinforcement ratio till failure (Fig. 8). For the
pile with higher transverse steel ratio, larger strains get
mobilized in soils till the occurrence of ultimate structural
failure, leading to increased pile displacement capacity. As
compared to of 0.157 %, increments of about 6% and
21% in load and displacement capacities respectively are
observed when is increased to 0.3%. Similarly,
increments of about 39% and 257% are observed for load
and displacement capacities respectively when is
increased to 0.587%.
Fig. 8. Influence of transverse reinforcement ratio of pile
on pile-soil response
All the above observations were made at a constant axial
load ratio. With the increase in the ratio, pile head load
capacity gets increased due to a greater and larger soil
4
passive wedge at a given soil strain. However, the ultimate
displacement capacity is reduced as the ultimate damage
state is reached earlier leading to lesser soil strain
mobilization. However, the effect becomes less
pronounced as the ratio is further increased.
6. Conclusions
The present study has demonstrated a new approach for
obtaining the p-y curve considering nonlinear pile-soil
interaction with any set of pile and soil properties. The
structural nonlinearities in pile behaviour as well as soil
properties are observed to have significant impact on the
lateral soil-pile response parameters like the depth and the
horizontal extent of the soil passive wedge, the pile head
lateral load and displacement capacities. The sequence of
damages in the pile-soil system is obtained through the
pile-soil interaction. The present study also illustrates the
initiation and progression of flow around failure in sand as
well as the extent of the soil strain mobilization at any
instant of structural damage. These are expected to provide
valuable insight for the improved design and behaviour of
pile-soil system in future.
References
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Mander, J.B., Priestley, M.J. and Park, R. (1988)
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