Pile Head Cyclic Lateral Loading of Single Pile

This paper presents an elastic continuum model using an extended nonlinear Davies and Budhu equations, which enables the nonlinear behavior of the soil around the long elastic pile to be modeled using a simple expression of pile-head stiffness method. The calculated results were validated with the measured full-scale dynamic field tests data conducted in Auckland residual clay. An idealized soil profile and soil stiffness under small strain (i.e. shear modulus, G _s and shear wave velocity, V _s of the soil) determined from in situ testing was used to model the single pile tests results. The predictions of these extended equations are also confirmed by using the three-dimensional finite-element OpenSeesPL (Lu et al. in OpenSeesPL 3D lateral pile-ground interaction: user manual, University of California, San Diego, 2010). A soil stiffness reduction factor, G _s /G _s,max of 0.36 was introduced to the proposed method and model. It was found to give a reasonable prediction for a single pile subjected to dynamic lateral loading. The reduction in soil stiffness found from the experiment arises from the cumulative effects of pile–soil separation as well as a change in the soil properties subjected to cyclic load. In summary, if the proposed method and model are accurately verified and properly used, then they are capable of producing realistic predictions. Both models provide good modelling tools to replicate the full-scale dynamic test results.