Response of offshore pile foundations

Pile foundations are frequently used for supporting offshore and nearshore structures. Pile groups in such environments are subjected to complex loading conditions necessitating a comprehensive analytical procedure for a proper evaluation of foundation response. The paper presents a method for three dimensional pile group analysis wherein the commonly encountered situations for such foundations can be accommodated. The procedure first evaluates the individual pile response under possible axial, lateral and torsional loading, which are then utilised to estimate the group response. The procedure has been programmed in C and used to solve some typical nearshore pile foundation problems. The software can be utilized for a rapid estimation of various pile group configurations in arriving at an optimum design solution.