An analytical approach for the determination of the response of a single ci
rcular cylindrical pile subjected to a lateral dynamic load is presented. T
he kinetic and the potential energies of the pile-foundation system are min
imized by variational principle to obtain the governing field equations of
the pile-foundation system along with the appropriate boundary conditions.
A non-dimensional parameter gamma, associated with the characteristics of t
he pile, the foundation and the loading is used to represent the elastic me
dium. This parameter gamma can be determined by using an iterative procedur
e. The classical finite difference method is used to solve the governing fi
eld equations of the pile-foundation system. The validation of the proposed
model is demonstrated by applying to several published field pile load tes
ts. Parametric studies with regard to the frequency response of the pile he
ad and the resonant frequency of the pile-foundation system are presented.
(C) 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.