THE EFFECTS OF SOIL YIELDlNG ON SEISMIC RESPONSE OF SINGLE PILES

ALI TABESH and HARRY G. POULOS

 ABSTRACT: In the seismic analysis of pile foundations the soil is often assumed to be an elastic material and the pressure at the soil pile interface is not limited during the analysis. This may result in a considerable error, as the computed pressure from an elastic analysis may go well beyond the ultimate lateral pressure of real soil. In fact, significant yielding at the soil-pile interface has been observed during real earthquakes, and also in laboratory tests. The yield zone is usually near the ground surface where the effect of inertial force due to the superstructure is higher. This yielding redefines the pile response, and in general cannot be ignored. In order to examine the effects of soil yielding on the internal pile response during earthquakes an approximate analysis is described in this paper which is an extension of a static method developed by the second author (1982) for tk analysis of piles subjected to lateral soil movement. This method is then used to investigate the effects of soil yielding on the internal response of piles through a comparative study in which real earthquakes are used. It is shown that ft strong earthquakes and heavily loaded piles the soil yielding may considerably increase the amount of maximum pi moment developed in the pile. A marked difference in the effects of yielding on the pile moment and shear is observed and discussed

Key words: earthquake, elasto-plastic analysis, pile foundation, pile internal forces, seismic response, soil yielding (IGC: E4/E8)