Depth of Fixity of Piles in Clay Under Dynamic Lateral Load

Dynamic experiments were carried out on instrumented model aluminium single piles embedded in clay of different consistencies to study its bending behaviour under lateral loads. Piles with different length to diameter ratios were used. Dynamic lateral load of different magnitudes ranging from 7 to 30 N at wide range of frequencies from 2 to 50 Hz were applied. The load transferred to the pile, pile head displacement and the strain variation along the pile length were measured using a dedicated data acquisition system. Static lateral load tests were also performed to investigate the magnification of dynamic response of piles in clay. It is found that the maximum bending moment due to dynamic load is magnified by about 1.5–4 times in comparison to the static load for short piles but about 9 times for long piles. Depth of fixity and effective pile length is also largely amplified under dynamic loads, thus indicating that a pile which behaves as a flexible pile under static load, may not exhibit flexible behaviour under dynamic load.