Soil‑pile interaction and evolution of soil pressure in an inclined liquefiable site‑pile group‑superstructure system

Abstract

This study presents a numerical simulation of large-scale shaking table tests on a superstructure supported by a pile group installed in an inclined liquefiable site, focusing on nonlinear interactions between piles and the soil. A three-dimensional finite element model of a soil-pile-superstructure system is developed using OpenSeesMP. The temporal and spatial evolution of the radial soil pressure around the pile is evaluated in both liquefied and nonliquefied sites. Results show that the soil pressure around the pile is significantly influenced by site inclination and soil lateral spreading. In liquefied sites, the soil pressure in the extruded zone of the upstream pile is significantly higher than that in the diffused zone. However, higher pressure occurs in the diffused zone for nonliquefied sites. Correspondingly, the liquefaction state significantly influences the force characteristics of the pile group system. Additionally, the group effect is more pronounced in liquefied sites. The results also indicate that the soil pressure distribution around the piles is closely related to the relative pile-soil displacement and reveals different on-pile force mechanisms under varying site conditions. These findings offer valuable insights into the seismic design of pile foundations in inclined liquefied sites.

Keywords

pile-soil interaction / liquefaction / circumferential soil pressure / group pile effect / shaking table tests / OpenSees numerical simulation

References

[1] GUNARATNE M. Design of driven piles and pile groups[M]//The Foundation Engineering Handbook. Boca Raton, FL, USA: CRC Press, 2006: 249-312.

[2] SHI M L, PANG F, ZHANG B. Behaviors of pile-supported embankments in highway engineering[J]. Journal of Southeast University (English Edition), 2005, 21(4): 495-499.

[3] GRIGORYAN A A. On certain characteristic design features of pile foundations in soils classed as type Ⅱ in terms of proneness to slump-type settlement[J]. Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, 2005, 42(1): 28-33.

[4] LIU C X, TAO L J, BIAN J, et al. Influence of the liquefied soil layer distribution on the seismic response of rectangular tunnel[J]. Journal of Southeast University(English Edition), 2018, 34(2): 259-268.

[5] FARAJI S F, WU Q X, ZHENG J J. True triaxial behavior of sandy soils under both drained and undrained conditions A discrete element perspective[J]. Journal of Southeast University (English Edition), 2024, 40(4): 336-345.

[6] YUE C, LIANG K, XU C S, et al. Experimental study on cyclic deformation properties of saturated Fujian sand at different loading frequencies[J]. Underground Space, 2023, 13: 150-165.

[7] XU C S, YUE C, DU X L, et al. Experimental study on the influence of cyclic loading frequency on liquefaction characteristics of saturated sand[J]. Géotechnique, 2025, 75(4): 501-514.

[8] IKUTA E, MIYANO M. Study of damage to the human body caused by earthquakes: Development of a mannequin for thoracic compression experiments and cyber mannequin using the finite element method[M]// Advances in Natural and Technological Hazards Research. Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Springer Netherlands, 2010: 275-289.

[9] HUANG Y, JIANG X M. Field-observed phenomena of seismic liquefaction and subsidence during the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in China[J]. Natural Hazards, 2010, 54(3): 839-850.

[10] KACHALI H, STEVENSON J R, WHITMAN Z, et al. Organisational resilience and recovery for Canterbury organisations after the 4 September 2010 earthquake[J]. Australasian Journal of Disaster and Trauma Studies, 2012, 1(1): 11-19.

[11] ZHANG X Y, TANG L, LI X W, et al. Effect of the combined action of lateral load and axial load on the pile instability in liquefiable soils[J]. Engineering Structures, 2020, 205: 110074.

[12] BRANDENBERG S J, BOULANGER R W, KUTTER B L, et al. Static pushover analyses of pile groups in liquefied and laterally spreading ground in centrifuge tests[J]. Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, 2007, 133(9): 1055-1066.

[13] JIE Y X. Analyses on finite earth pressure and slope safety factors[J]. Journal of Tsinghua University (Science and Technology), 2019, 59(8): 619-627. (in Chinese)

[14] KO Y Y, LIN Y Y. A comparison of simplified modelling approaches for performance assessment of piles subjected to lateral spreading of liquefied ground[J]. Geofluids, 2020, 2020(1): 8812564.

[15] XU C S, JIA K M, DU X L, et al. Seismic research review of pile foundations in liquefaction-induced lateral spreading sites[J]. Journal of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Engineering, 2021, 41(4): 768-791.

[16] LIN H, NI L S, SULEIMAN M T, et al. Interaction between laterally loaded pile and surrounding soil[J]. Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, 2015, 141(4): 04014119.

[17] SULEIMAN M T, RAICH A, POLSON T W, et al. Measured soil-pile interaction pressures for small-diameter laterally loaded pile in loose sand[C]//Proceedings of GeoFlorida 2010:Advances in Analysis, Modeling & Design. West Palm Beach, FL, USA, 2010: 1498-1506.

[18] SULEIMAN M T, NI L S, HELM J D, et al. Soil-pile interaction for a small diameter pile embedded in granular soil subjected to passive loading[J]. Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, 2014, 140(5): 04014002.

[19] RAJESWARI J S, SARKAR R. Performance of piles with different batter angles in laterally spreading soil: A probabilistic investigation[J]. Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering, 2020, 18(14): 6203-6244.

[20] LI L C, ZHENG M Y, LIU X, et al. Numerical analysis of the cyclic loading behavior of monopile and hybrid pile foundation[J]. Computers and Geotechnics, 2022, 144: 104635.

[21] LI L C, LIU H, WU W B, et al. Investigation on the behavior of hybrid pile foundation and its surrounding soil during cyclic lateral loading[J]. Ocean Engineering, 2021, 240: 110006.

[22] WU W B, LU C H, CHEN L B, et al. Horizontal vibration characteristics of pile groups in unsaturated soil considering coupled pile-pile interaction[J]. Ocean Engineering, 2023, 281: 115000.

[23] GAO X, LING X Z, TANG L, et al. Soil-pile-bridge structure interaction in liquefying ground using shake table testing[J]. Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering, 2011, 31(7): 1009-1017.

[24] KONG D S, LIU Y, DENG M X, et al. Analysis of influencing factors of lateral soil resistance distribution characteristics around monopile foundation for offshore wind power[J]. Applied Ocean Research, 2020, 97: 102106.

[25] LIANG W W, LENG L Y, TIAN H, et al. Nonlinear numerical simulation of dynamic response of pile site and pile foundation under earthquake[J]. Nonlinear Engineering, 2022, 11(1): 485-493.

[26] HUANG M S, CUI H, SHI Z H, et al. Seismic response of offshore wind turbine supported by monopile and caisson foundations in undrained clay[C]// Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Performance Based Design in Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering. Beijing, China, 2022: 50-66.

[27] ALVER O, ESELLER-BAYAT E E. Correction: A dynamic p-y model for piles embedded in cohesionless soils[J]. Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering, 2024, 22(2): 759.

[28] TALESNICK M. Measuring soil pressure within a soil mass[J]. Canadian Geotechnical Journal, 2013, 50(7): 716-722.

[29] TAMARI Y, OZUTSUMI O, ICHII K, et al. Simplified method for nonlinear soil-pile interactions in two dimensional effective stress analysis[M]//Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering and Soil Dynamics Ⅴ. Reston, VA, USA: American Society of Civil Engineers, 2018: 258-268.

[30] HAERI S M, KAVAND A, RAHMANI I, et al. Response of a group of piles to liquefaction-induced lateral spreading by large scale shake table testing[J]. Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering, 2012, 38: 25-45.

[31] ZHANG X L, ZHANG B J, ZHANG W X, et al. Research on dynamic p-y curves in liquefied sand under cyclic loading conditions[J]. Ocean Engineering, 2023, 285: 115360.

[32] JIA K M, XU C S, DU X L, et al. Design of large-scale shaking table test scheme for seismic failure response of liquefaction-induced lateral spreading site-pile group foundation-structural system[J]. Engineering Mechanics, 2023, 40(7): 121-136.

[33] JIA K M, XU C S, EL NAGGAR M H, et al. Effects of soil crust on seismic failure behavior of pile group-bridge system during liquefaction-induced lateral spreading: Large-scale shake table experiments[J]. Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, 2023, 149(10): 04023082.

[34] PAN R J, XU C S, JIA K M, et al. Large-scale shaking table test and three-dimensional numerical simulation research on earthquake seismic failure response of laterally spreading site-pile group-superstructure system[J]. Bulletin of Earthquake Engineering, 2023, 21(10): 4789-4819.

[35] YANG Z H, LI C F, LIU L, et al. Study on modeling method of reinforced concrete pier based on OpenSees[J]. Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 2021, 1838(1): 012034.

[36] CAVALIERI F, CORREIA A A, PINHO R. Variations between foundation-level recordings and free-field earthquake ground motions: Numerical study at soft-soil sites[J]. Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering, 2021, 141: 106511.

[37] ÇETINDEMIR O, ZÜLFIKAR A C. Numerical validation of fully coupled nonlinear seismic soil-pile-structure interaction[J]. Buildings, 2024, 14(6): 1502.

Funding

The National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars(52225807)