Three Dimensional Nonlinear Finite Element Modeling Of The Single Pile Under Static Lateral Loading

Several reasons cause the interaction between the laterally loaded pile and soil complex. Firstly, with the development of harbor and marine engineering, the flow depth becomes deeper and deeper. Lateral loads, such as impact loads from vessels, forces of water flowing and wave action, are more and more considered to be one of the most important factors in the design, or sometimes even to be controlling loads. Secondly, in the urban construction, wind forces on tall buildings and lateral seismic forces from earthquakes gradually become one of the controlling factors in the building design. Finally, in the bridge construction, single pile and pile groups are often subjected to significant lateral loads in addition to axial compressive and uplift loads. The lateral loads on piles are derived from the centripetal force from vehicular traffic on curved highway bridges, loads from water, wave or vessels, and so on. So it is important to study the behavior of the pile foundation under lateral loads.First of all, research findings and progress on the subject have been summarized. Then proceeding with the full-scale field test and finite element analysis, some conclusions have been obtained based on the study on the response of the drilled shaft to static lateral load and the displacement and stress field of soil in front of the drilled shaft.The equipment, operation, result analysis, and determination of the critical load, ultimate load, and coefficient of horizontal reaction subgrade are introduced. Take a project in the suburb of Taizhou for example, the analyses of the static single pile test are conducted. The test results of two drilled shaft meet the needs of the design value of the bearing capacity. The displacement of the single pile with the free head at the ground surface is less than 10mm.Subsequently, the finite element analysis package, ABAQUS, is used in the paper to simulate the lateral load test on drilled shafts, which helps to understand the behavior of the pile-soil interaction in the elasto-plastic soil. A 3-D finite element...