Improved pseudostatic analysis of pile response to seismic ground movement: Multiple characteristic ground displacement profiles

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Piles may be subjected to significant kinematic loading from ground movement under earthquakes. Pseudostatic analysis, which is based on the Winker beam model, traditionally adopts a single ground displacement profile, known as the characteristic ground displacement profile, for assessments of pile response under this loading condition. This study conducts dynamic analyses with different soil, pile-head-fixity, and seismic conditions and generates displacement, moment, and shear force response envelopes to evaluate the appropriateness of the characteristic displacement profiles of four common methods. These methods give inconsistent predictions because the maximum responses at different depths in the pile response envelopes occur at different points in time. To address this issue, we propose using multiple characteristic ground displacement profiles, which are determined by the maximum ground relative deformation or rotation. These multiple profiles, when used in pseudostatic analyses, give consistent predictions with dynamic pile response envelopes in most scenarios, thus overcoming the limitations of conventional single-profile methods.