Laterally Loaded

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2004 EC Mekelle University 2011/2012 GC

Ethiopian Institute of Technology-Mekelle (EiT-M)


Department of Civil Engineering
Geotechnical and Material Engineering Chair (GMEC)
Graduate Program

5.2 Laterally loaded piles


Structures founded on piles are often subjected to lateral loads and moments in addition to vertical
loads. Lateral loads may come from wind, traffic, seismic events, waves and earth pressures.
Moments may come from the eccentricity of the vertical force, fixity of the superstructure to the pile
or piles and the location of the lateral forces on the pile with reference to the ground surface.
When a pile is subjected to lateral forces and moments, the pile tends to bend or deflect as illustrated
in Figure 1. The deflection of the pile causes strains in the soil mass. To satisfy equilibrium, the soil
must provide reactions along the length of the pile to balance the applied loads and moments.

Figure 1 Pile – soil response to lateral loads and moments


Because soil is a non-linear material, the soil reaction is not linearly related to the pile deflection.
Consequently at every point along the length of the pile, a non-linear relationship between soil
resistance (p) and pile deflection (y) exists as illustrated in Figure 1.

Lecture Notes on Laterally Loaded Piles by Dr. Tensay Gebremedhin, EiT-M, MU Page-1/15
In designing laterally loaded piles, we need to know the pile deflection, particularly the pile head
deflection, to satisfy serviceability requirement and the bending moments for sizing the pile. The pile
head deflection depends on soil type, pile installation, pile flexibility (or pile stiffness), loading
condition and on how the pile is attached to the superstructure and pile cap. A pile that is attached to
the pile cap such that no rotation occurs is called a fixed head pile (Figure 2a). A pile that is attached
to the pile cap such that rotation is unrestricted is called a free head pile (Figure 2b).
The mechanism of failure depends on the length to diameter or width ratio, soil type and the fixity of
the pile head. Free head piles tend to fail by rotation. Lateral loads and moments applied to a free
head pile is initially resisted by the soil near ground level. For very small pile deflections, the soil
behaves elastically and as the deflection increases the soil yields and then permanent soil
displacement occurs. The soil resistance is shifted to the lower part of the pile as yielding
progressively occurs from the top to the bottom of the pile. Fixed head piles tend to fail by
translation. Piles in general are neither fixed head nor free head. They have undermined fixity
somewhere between free head and fixed head conditions. You can view fixed head and free head as
two limiting conditions in which piles in practice will respond somewhere within these limits.

(a) Short, free head (b) Short, fixed head (c) Long, free head (d) Long, fixed head
Figure 2 Possible failure modes in short and long piles.
Lecture Notes on Laterally Loaded Piles by Dr. Tensay Gebremedhin, EiT-M, MU Page -2/15
Two types of piles are normally defined to distinguish failure mechanisms. One is called a short pile
that is characterized by length to diameter (or width) ratio of less than 10 (sometimes a ratio of up to
15 is quoted in the literature). Short, free head piles tend to fail by rotation about a point near the
pile tip (or base). Rotation occurs when the sum of the soil resistance (called passive pressures) at the
top part of the pile is lower than the sum of the soil resistance at the lower part of the pile. Short,
fixed head piles tend to fail by translation. The failure of short piles is due to soil failure. Long piles
tend to fail by structural failure near ground level rather than by soil failure.

Figure 3 Group piles subjected to lateral loads


Laterally loaded pile, particularly group piles are particularly difficult to analyze mainly because of the
complexity of the soil–structure (pile) interaction. The displacement and rotation are in the directions
of the resultant lateral load and resultant moment (Figure 3). Outer piles in a group are subjected
uplift (pull) and compressive (push) forces while the piles in the center translate at the level of the
superstructure connection. The response of a pile group to lateral loads and moments is influenced by
1. Geometry of the group
2. Pile-soil interaction
3. Stiffness or flexibility of the piles
4. Load conditions
5. Individual pile response
6. Pile group response resulting from individual pile responses.

Lecture Notes on Laterally Loaded Piles by Dr. Tensay Gebremedhin, EiT-M, MU Page -3/15
Analyses of lateral loaded piles
Basic structural mechanics
Consider an element of thickness, dz, of the pile shown in Figure 1 at a depth z. The free body diagram
for this element is shown in Figure 4. We will assume that the pile is symmetrical about the z-axis, the
loads lie in the yz plane, deflection of the pile occurs only along the y-axis, i.e., no out of plane
deflection, and shear deflection is negligible.

Figure 4 Free body diagram of a pile section under lateral loads and moments.

Lecture Notes on Laterally Loaded Piles by Dr. Tensay Gebremedhin, EiT-M, MU Page -4/15
Taking moments about O, we get

where P is the vertical load, p is the soil resistance, y is the soil compression (or pile deflection), E is
z p

the elastic modulus of the pile, k is a soil (stiffness) parameter, and I is the second moment of area of
p

the pile. Substituting the above Eqs. 4-6 into Eq. 3 gives the governing equation for a laterally loaded
elastic pile as

If the pile above the ground level is subjected to a distributed load, for example from water, then the
governing equation becomes

where W is the resultant of the distributed load. Eq. 8 can be solved using numerical methods such as
the finite difference method or finite element method.
The term, ky, in the governing equation changes depending on the assumption made regarding the
soil response. One can assume an elastic soil or an elasto-plastic soil or some other type of load-
deformation response. The solution of Eq. 8 therefore varies on the assumption of how the soil will
respond.
Three methods of obtaining solutions to the governing equation based on three different types of soil
responses are described below.

Lecture Notes on Laterally Loaded Piles by Dr. Tensay Gebremedhin, EiT-M, MU Page -5/15
1. Elastic beam on elastic foundation method
In this method, the pile is assumed to be an elastic beam that is attached to discrete springs
representing the soil (Figure 5). The soil is assumed to be elastic but discontinuous. The soil stiffness
parameter, k, is taken as the lateral subgrade modulus of the soil. It is assumed to be a constant value
for fine-grained soils and linearly increasing with depth for coarse-grained soils. The lateral subgrade
modulus, K , is the ratio of the horizontal soil reaction per unit area to the lateral soil displacement.
h

The lateral subgrade modulus can be obtained from field tests using instrumented test piles. The
lateral soil reactions and the bending moments are inferred from grain gauges attached to the test
pile. The determination of the lateral subgrade modulus is often difficult and expensive. Empirical
relationships are often used to relate results from simpler and routine tests such as SPT, cone tests
and or laboratory shear tests to K . A relationship between K and elastic properties was proposed by
h h

Valsangkar et. al. (1973) as shown in Table 1. The main problem with the elastic beam on elastic
foundation approach is that it neglects soil continuity and soil shearing resistance. This method is
satisfactory for very small strain levels (<0.001%)

Figure 4 Simulation of adjacent soil mass as a set of discrete springs


2. P-y analysis
The p-y (soil resistance – pile deflection) method (Matlock and Ripperger, 1958; Reese, Cox and Koop,
1975 and others) is conceptually similar to the beam on elastic foundation method except that the
soil stiffness parameter k is not constant i.e. there is a non-linear relationship between the soil
resistance and its displacement (equal to the pile deflection. The non-linear relationships are obtained
from results of well-instrumented test piles. General procedures have been developed to construct p-

Lecture Notes on Laterally Loaded Piles by Dr. Tensay Gebremedhin, EiT-M, MU Page -6/15
y curves for many soil types lessening the need to conduct lateral load tests, at least, in the
preliminary stages of design. However, it is recommended that pile load tests be conducted whenever
such tests are feasible and economical. Computer programs are available for routine use. Like the
elastic beam on elastic foundation approach, the p-y method neglects soil continuity and soil shearing
resistance.
3. Continuum Analysis
In this method of analysis, soil is treated as a continuous media with assumptions made on its stress-
strain behavior or constitutive relationships. The simplest stress-strain behavior is elastic described by
Hooke’s law. The solution gives the load-deformation response of the pile for small strain levels
(Poulos,1971; Randolph, 1981). Soil yielding or pile yielding cannot be obtained from this analysis. To
account for soil yielding, the soil can be assumed to be an elasto-plastic material (Davies and Budhu,
1986; Budhu and Davies,1986, 1987).

Figure 6 Soil stresses on a pile segment resulting from lateral loads that are taken into account in Davies and
Budhu method

We will adopt the elasto-(rigid) plastic solution using boundary element method proposed by Davies
and Budhu (1986) and Budhu and Davies (1986, 1987) for the general analysis of lateral loaded single
piles. The soil is assumed to behave linearly elastic at small strain levels. Yielding occurs when the
normal and shear stresses on the pile reach values determined from a limiting equilibrium analysis.

Lecture Notes on Laterally Loaded Piles by Dr. Tensay Gebremedhin, EiT-M, MU Page -7/15
Bearing failure on the front face, shear stresses along the sides and tension failure along the back face
(Figure 6) should be incorporated into the analysis. Failure on the bearing face occurs when

where σ is the limiting compressive stress, N is the bearing capacity factor that is assumed to vary
bf c

from 2 at the surface to a constant value of 9 at a depth of three pile diameters and below. The
limiting shear stress at the sides of the pile is

where the adhesion factor, α , is taken as 1 for soft clays. On the back face or tension face, the normal
u

stress cannot exceed the in situ lateral effective stress, i.e.,

where K is the lateral earth pressure coefficient that accounts for pile installation. For soft clays, K , is
is is

usually 1.0 or greater.


The important findings from the continuum analysis are as follows.
1. The analysis is valid only for a pile with a length greater than its effective length. The effective
length is the length of pile that is effective in resisting the loads and moments. Piles longer than
their effective lengths will behave identically.
2. The maximum bending moment in free head piles would normally occur at depth less than 5
diameters below ground level.
3. Eccentric lateral loads increase the maximum bending moment (regardless of the type of analysis).
4. Fixed head piles reduce the pile head deflection by about 50%.
5. Laterally loaded piles, in general, fail by yielding of the pile section well before the soil fails.
6. The lower the flexibility of the pile the greater the pile deflection and the greater the maximum
bending moment. Flexibility, K, is the ratio of the elastic modulus of the pile to the elastic modulus
of the soil.

The predictions from boundary element analyses are curve-fitted to give equations that can be easily
used in practice. A summary of the relevant equations for single, solid piles embedded in
homogenous stiff clays (undrained shear strength constant with depth), homogenous soft clays
(undrained shear strength varies linearly with depth) and sand are summarized in Table 1.

Lecture Notes on Laterally Loaded Piles by Dr. Tensay Gebremedhin, EiT-M, MU Page -8/15
Table 1 Design equations for laterally loaded piles

Lecture Notes on Laterally Loaded Piles by Dr. Tensay Gebremedhin, EiT-M, MU Page -9/15
Lecture Notes on Laterally Loaded Piles by Dr. Tensay Gebremedhin, EiT-M, MU Page -10/15
Lecture Notes on Laterally Loaded Piles by Dr. Tensay Gebremedhin, EiT-M, MU Page -11/15
Lecture Notes on Laterally Loaded Piles by Dr. Tensay Gebremedhin, EiT-M, MU Page -12/15
Procedures
1. Obtain soils information for the site, particularly the variation of undrained shear strength
with depth.
2. Select pile (geometry and material, e.g. concrete).
3. Obtain loads and moments
4. Determine fixity condition – free head or fixed head.
5. Determine effective length and check that embedded length is greater than the effective
length.
6. Determine K, f, g, W , n, k , h
r n n

7. Calculate collapse load, yield load and working load.


8. Calculate elastic influence factors, I etc.
uH

9. Calculate elastic ground surface deflection and rotation. The latter for only free head pile.
10. Calculate elastic maximum bending moment.
11. Calculate yield influence factors, I etc
uy

12. Calculate total ground surface deflection and rotation.


13. Calculate total maximum bending moment.
14. Design the pile for the critical actions.

Exercise Problem
A 460-mm diameter timber pile of total length 9.75 m is embedded to a depth, L, of 9.14 m in a soft,
normally consolidated, clay deposit of medium plasticity. The working stress, σw, for timber of this
quality is 11 MN/m2, and its Young’s modulus of elasticity is 10.3 GN/m2. A lateral load is to be applied
at a height, e, of 690 mm above ground level. Required are: (1) The working load; (2) the lateral
deflection; and (3) the maximum bending moment.
(Assume: αu = 1; K0 = 1;  = 9.4 kN/m3; c = 2.7 kN/m3; and m = 2.7 MN/m3.)

Lecture Notes on Laterally Loaded Piles by Dr. Tensay Gebremedhin, EiT-M, MU Page -13/15

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