Seismic behavior of steel piles in offshore bridge piers

Steel H-piles are used extensively to support foundations of major bridges, buildings and other civil engineering facilities. In seismic regions, the foundations are subjected to combinations of gravity loads and relatively large seismic effects during the earthquakes. One of the major failure modes of the steel piles is formation of local buckling under the pile caps and fracture of these locally buckled areas due to low-cycle fatigue. The experimental and analytical research project summarized here was conducted to study low-cycle fatigue behavior of vertical steel H-piles and to develop seismic design guidelines for these piles.