ANALYSIS OF PILES SUBJECTED TO EMBANKMENT INDUCED LATERAL SOIL MOVEMENTS

Damage to piles supporting structures, bridge abutments, and utilities can occur as a result of the construction of nearby embankments. This is because the lateral displacements resulting from these constructio n activities can induce forces and moments in the piles. The resulting stresses can be significant particularly when soft soil deposits are present and the lateral soil displacements are large. This paper descr ibes a simplified numerical procedure based on the finite-element meth od for analyzing the response of single piles to lateral soil movement s, The flexural bending of the pile is modeled by beam elements. The c omplex phenomenon of the pile-soil interaction is modeled by hyperboli c soil springs. A framework for determining the soil parameters for us e in the analysis is summarized here. Comparisons are made between the observed behavior of full-scale tests and centrifuge model tests and those computed by;he proposed numerical method. Based on parametric st udies, empirical design solutions for pile foundation systems at the b ase of a sloped embankment are presented.