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Abstract: This paper deals with the design of rigid piles under lateral load. In many practical situations pile displacements may be the limiting
factor in the design; thus, an allowable displacement analysis instead of an allowable stress analysis may be more appropriate in the foundation
Downloaded from ascelibrary.org by Li.co.Sa 3527311/Ct on 11/10/15. Copyright ASCE. For personal use only; all rights reserved.
design. A nonlinear elastoplastic closed-form solution for the evaluation of the response of rigid piles under lateral load is presented. The de-
rived equations allow determining the lateral displacement and load distribution for a given combination of the applied forces, H0 and M0 , at the
pile head. The approach can be applied either for cohesive or cohesionless soils. For greater generality, the solution has been given in nondimensional
form. A comparison with the Broms solution for a free rigid pile in cohesionless soil is also presented. Comparisons with experimental results show
that the proposed approach may fit in a reliable way the nonlinear load-displacement response of a free rigid pile. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)GT.1943-
5606.0000771. © 2013 American Society of Civil Engineers.
CE Database subject headings: Piles; Shafts; Rigidity; Design; Lateral loads; Deflection; Elastoplasticity.
Author keywords: Piles; Shafts; Rigid piles; Pile design; Lateral load; Lateral deflection; Analysis.
Introduction surrounding soil; however, even under low working loads the soil
may reach its limiting lateral load somewhere. In fact, experimental
In the design of rigid piles under lateral loads it is of great importance evidence has shown that an elastoplastic model for surrounding soil
to determine the allowable working load as well as to evaluate the is more appropriate than a simple elastic model in providing better
shaft lateral displacement. In a rigid pile failure takes place when the prediction of the pile movement and bending moments (Ismael and
lateral resistance of the soil is fully mobilized along the whole Klym 1978). The p-y method developed by McClelland and Focht
length. Matlock and Reese (1960) have shown that the rigidity of (1956) is a useful procedure for the design of piles and drilled piles
a pile is strictly dependent on the ratio of the flexural stiffness of the under lateral loads. The reaction of the soil is related to the lateral
pile, EI, and the foundation soil modulus, Es . Methods to determine movement of the pile by means of nonlinear load transfer functions.
how the pile will behave in relation to lateral load have been pro- Methods to estimate the p-y curves were developed by many authors;
posed by Vesic (1961), Davisson and Gill (1963), and Lytton (1971). however, these approaches do not lead to closed-form solutions.
Kasch et al. (1977) compared results obtained with various methods On the other hand, numerical procedures are not justified in many
and found that these methods led to similar results. Kasch et al. circumstances. Therefore, simplified procedures may be adopted for
(1977) also found that the ratios of the length to diameter, L/D, which quick estimation of lateral displacements in single piles. For ex-
could be used to classify a pile as rigid, should not exceed a value of ample, analytical solutions have been presented by Hsiung (2003)
∼6. Many authors considered the failure of a soil-pile system based and Hsiung et al. (2006). Some elastic-plastic solutions were also
on a given pile deflection. For example, Coyle and Bierschwale given by the writer for the case of a laterally loaded long single pile
(1983) assumed as the ultimate lateral force on a rigid pile in clay the (Motta 1994a) and an axially loaded long single pile (Motta 1994b)
value that induces a pile rotation of 2. based on the load-transfer concept. More recently, Klar and Randolph
A practical approach for evaluation of the limiting lateral re- (2008) presented a load-displacement solution based on energy
sistance of rigid piles was given by Broms (1964a) for cohesionless minimization. Usually, these simplified approaches assume that the
soil and by Broms (1964b) for cohesive soil. Based on the rigid- limiting lateral load is constant with the depth but many soils, such as
plastic behavior of the soil-pile interaction, the method does not normally consolidated clays or sands, may exhibit a limiting lateral
allow estimating the lateral deflection of the pile. However, in many load that increases linearly with the depth.
practical situations pile displacements may be the limiting factor in In this paper, an elastic-perfectly plastic behavior for p-y curves
pile design. Thus, an allowable displacement analysis instead of an is used and the behavior of single rigid piles against transversal
allowable stress analysis may be more appropriate in foundation design. forces is investigated. The limiting lateral load was assumed either
Prediction of horizontal pile displacement under working loads constant or increasing linearly with the depth. Some closed-form
can be carried out by simply assuming an elastic behavior of the solutions were deduced that take into account the nonlinear be-
havior of the soil-pile interaction. These solutions can be used in
practical situations for quick prediction of the soil-pile response in
1
Associate Professor, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, rigid piles in terms of soil reactions and lateral deflections under
Univ. di Catania, 95125 Catania, Italy. E-mail: emotta@dica.unict.it working loads.
Note. This manuscript was submitted on July 20, 2010; approved on May
14, 2012; published online on May 16, 2012. Discussion period open until
August 1, 2013; separate discussions must be submitted for individual Theoretical Analysis
papers. This technical note is part of the Journal of Geotechnical and
Geoenvironmental Engineering, Vol. 139, No. 3, March 1, 2013. ©ASCE, The analysis presented here was carried out for a limiting lateral load
ISSN 1090-0241/2013/3-501–506/$25.00. that was either constant or increasing linearly with the depth. The
4H0 L þ 6M0
Soil-Pile Interaction for a Constant Limit p1 ¼ ð3Þ
L2
Load along the Pile Depth
2H0 L þ 6M0
When the lateral resistance of the soil-pile system is constant with p2 ¼ ð4Þ
L2
the depth, as in the case of cohesive soil (Broms 1964b), then
The point of rotation of the pile is located at depth x below the
plim ¼ su DNc ð1Þ
ground surface given by
where plim 5 limiting lateral load per meter length, su 5 undrained 2H0 L þ 3M0
shear strength, D 5 pile diameter, and Nc 5 bearing capacity factor, x ¼ L ð5Þ
3H0 L þ 6M0
which according to Broms (1964b), can be taken equal to 9. In the
derivation of the limiting lateral force, Broms (1964b) omitted
the upper 1.5D of the pile because of the lower value of Nc . Indeed,
the limiting lateral load varied between plim 5 2su D at the ground
surface and plim 5 9su D at a depth 3D below the ground surface. If
the modulus of the soil reaction of the p-y curves is denoted with Es ,
the limit displacement for which yielding occurs is
plim
ylim ¼ ð2Þ
Es
After the soil yields, its reaction will not increase with the pile
movement.
The following three cases will be distinguished in the analysis, as
illustrated in Fig. 2:
• Case 1: Up to a certain value of the horizontal force, H0 , and the
moment, M0 , applied at the pile head, the pile displacements will
be anywhere less than the limit value given by Eq. (1) and the soil-
pile interaction will be purely elastic [Fig. 2(a)].
• Case 2: As forces H0 and M0 increase, the limit value, ylim , of the
p-y curves will be exceeded up to a certain depth a below
the ground surface [Fig. 2(b)]. The soil reaction will be equal
to the limiting lateral load, plim , while in the lower part of the pile
the soil-pile interaction will still be elastic.
Fig. 2. Soil-pile interaction for a limiting lateral load constant with the
Fig. 1. Constitutive law for the p-y curves adopted in the analysis depth
For greater generality, it is more convenient to express the equa- It follows, according to the assumed elastoplastic model, that the
tions in a nondimensional form by introducing the following di- horizontal deflection of the pile is a nonlinear function of the applied
mensionless forces: forces. It is possible to show that Case 2 occurs if h and m satisfy
both of the following conditions:
H0 M0
h ¼ ; m ¼ ð9Þ 4h þ 6m . 1 ð19Þ
plim L plim L2
4h þ 6m # 1 ð13Þ 1þh
yL ¼ pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi ð24Þ
3 2 3h2 2 6h 2 12m
When p1 5 plim , then 4h 1 6m 5 1; thus, yL 5 1. Being in elastic
conditions, the nondimensional head displacement will vary line- Case 3 occurs if
arly from 0 to 1 until the plastic state is reached. 2h2 þ 2h þ 6m . 1 ð25Þ
and
Case 2 h2 þ 2h þ 4m # 1 ð26Þ
The soil will begin to yield first in the upper part of the pile; how-
ever, the soil reaction will not increase further because the limiting Therefore, any combination of H0 and M0 such that h2 1 2h 1
lateral load has already been attained. By imposing translational and 4m . 1 is not an allowable state for a soil-pile system. Fig. 3 shows
rotational equilibrium conditions, the extent of plastic zone a is the dimensionless head displacement [Eq. (24)] of a rigid pile with
given by a limiting lateral load constant and with the depth for values of
dimensionless head bending moments of m 5 0, 0:025, and 0:050.
4H0 L þ 6M0 2 plim L2 The range of m 5 0 0:050 may cover most practical situations.
a ¼ ð14Þ For example, for an undrained shear strength su 5 100 kPa, pile di-
2ðplim L 2 H0 Þ
ameter D 5 1 m, and pile length L 5 6 m, M0 5 810 kN=m when
m 5 0:025.
and, in a dimensionless form
The dimensionless distance x/L of the point of rotation, taken from This case may be expected for a cohesionless soil or for a cohe-
the bottom of the plastic zone [see Fig. 2(b)], is sive normally consolidated soil with a limiting lateral load equal
u ¼ 3g Kp D ð28Þ a 4h þ 6m
¼ ð34Þ
L 1 2 2h
where g 5 bulk unit weight of the soil and Kp 5 Rankine passive
2
earth pressure coefficient. For a linear variation of the limiting lateral x ¼ ð2h þ 3mÞð1 2 6h 2 6mÞ
ð35Þ
load, whatever the horizontal forces applied at the pile head, yielding L ð1 2 2hÞ ð3h þ 6mÞ 2 ð2 2 4hÞð2h þ 3mÞ2
2
will occur in the soil because at the ground surface the limiting lateral
load is zero. Thus, Cases 1 and 2 may be distinguished as will be " #
shown subsequently and as illustrated in Fig. 4. ð2 2 4hÞð3h þ 6mÞ 2 ð4h þ 6mÞ2 4h þ 6m
yL ¼ 1þ
ð1 2 6h 2 6mÞ2 1 2 2h
Case 1 ð36Þ
Referring to Fig. 4(a), the following can be obtained:
Case 1 occurs if
The nondimensional location of the point of rotation ða 1 xÞ/L of and in dimensional form
a rigid pile in a soil whose limiting lateral load is linearly increasing
with the depth is located between 0.670 and 0.794L, increasing as dH0 Es L2
¼ ð46Þ
the horizontal force increases up to its limit value. Fig. 5 shows dyh yh50 4L þ 6e
a plot of the nondimensional head deflection deduced from Eqs. (36)
and (41) and for various values of nondimensional forces h and m. where e 5 load eccentricity and e 5 e/L 5 nondimensional load
In Fig. 5 the values of m 5 0, 0:025, and 0:050 are in the range eccentricity. From Eq. (46), it follows that
of usual working loads. For example, if u 5 3gKp D and assuming
f0 5 30, g 5 20 kN=m3 , D 5 1 m, and L 5 6 m, then a value of
Es ¼ 4L þ2 6e Kin ð47Þ
m 5 0:025 means M0 5 650 kN=m. L
In the Broms (1964a) approach for cohesionless soils the ultimate
lateral force is deduced with the assumption that the toe reaction and Thus, if test results are available for a given site and initial stiffness
the point of rotation are located at the bottom of the pile. This as- Kin of the load-deflection curve is determined, then Eq. (47) could
sumption produces an overestimation of the limiting lateral re- be used for quick estimation of the equivalent modulus of soil reac-
sistance. The location of the point of rotation is dependent on the tion Es utilized in the proposed approach.
values of H0 and M0 applied at the pile head. Thus, the error in the
evaluation of the lateral resistance in cohesionless soil may be
significant, as shown in Fig. 6, where the nondimensional limit Comparison with Experimental Results
forces, hlim , given by the Broms (1964a) approach and that given by
the present analysis are plotted as a function of the nondimensional Mayne et al. (1995) referred to laboratory tests on 26 medium-sized
eccentricity e 5 e/L 5 m/h 5 M0 /H0 L. It can be seen that the dif- shafts with diameter D 5 89 mm and length/diameter ratios of
ferences between the two solutions may be very high, especially for L=D 5 3, 4, 6, and 8. The soil was prepared from kaolinitic slurry
high eccentricity. The relative scatter varies from about 30% for with the following index properties: liquid limit of wL 5 33; plastic
e/L 5 0 up to about 67% for e/L approaching infinity (i.e., H0 5 0 index of PI 5 11; specific gravity of Gs 5 2:65; clay fraction 5 33%;
References