A two-stage based model for partially-buried pile group response in cross-anisotropic saturated media adjacent to moving harmonic loads

Abstract

The pile foundations are frequently affected by adjacent traffic loads except for general active loads. However, the dynamic responses of the pile groups under moving loads have been rarely reported before. In addition, the influence of material anisotropy is often neglected. In this paper, a three-dimensional (3D) analytical model for the dynamic analysis of partially buried pile groups in stratified saturated cross-anisotropic media under adjacent moving harmonic loadings is developed. Specifically, a 3D Bernoulli–Euler beam theory is adopted to simulate the monopile and then superimposed into the finite element (FE) formulation for the partially embedded pile groups. Subsequently, the basic solutions of layered saturated cross-anisotropic soils are derived by the analytical layer-element approach (ALEA). By combination with ALEA, the two-stage based boundary element (BE) equations for the pile-soil interface are obtained. Finally, by coupling the FE and BE formulations, the dynamical response equation of pile-soil is established. Based on the verification of the accuracy of the proposed methodology by comparisons with existing solutions and FE results from ABAQUS, the impacts of material anisotropy, pile buried length, loading velocity, and pile stiffness on the time-domain dynamic behavior of pile groups are analyzed. The results show that increasing the pile-buried ratio or pile stiffness reduces the magnitude of the dynamic response. Moreover, with the increase of material anisotropic parameters, the peak pile response decreases. And the peak dynamic response first increases and then reduces as the loading velocity increases.