Dynamic Analysis of Single Pile in Liquefied Soils Considered as Newtonian Fluid

Abstract

Case histories have shown that the liquefaction-induced soil lateral spreading is one of the main causes of damage to pile foundations subjected to seismic loading. Post-liquefaction soil behaves similarly to a viscous fluid. This study investigated the effect of soil lateral spreading on a single pile based on fluid mechanics in which the liquefied soils were treated as Newtonian fluids. A numerical simulation on a single pile embedded in a fully saturated sandy foundation was conducted and compared with shake table tests. The lateral flow effect and the effect of shear strain rate were discussed. After liquefaction, the acceleration of the foundation shows that there are no obvious spikes and finally reaches a stable state. The presented method can predict the pile response better than p-y curve method. A parametric study was performed to explore the effect of several influence factors on pile behaviors. The results show that the pile head displacement decreases and the maximum bending moment at pile bottom increases with the increase of bending stiffness. With the same pile bending stiffness, the displacement and bending moment of pile increase with the increase of soil viscosity and acceleration amplitude.