Soil-pile-structure interactions

A computationally efficient method is presented for the 3-D analysis of pile foundations under strong earthquake shaking. The key elements of the method are: efficient nonlinear 3-D analysis using a reduced 3-D equation to describe the halfspace enclosing the piles, direct analysis of the pile group including kinematic and inertial interaction, and the ability to establish time-dependent stiffness and damping factors during earthquake shaking. The approach provides a comprehensive understanding of how pile foundations behave during strong seismic shaking, when non-linear soil behaviour is significant. The proposed method has been validated against existing elastic solutions for linear response and against nonlinear response of single piles and pile groups in centrifuge tests under strong shaking against centrifuge test data for single piles and pile groups for strong shaking.