Interaction of a cylindrical thin‐walled pile with an inhomogeneous isotropic elastic medium

Abstract

SummaryThis paper presents a rigorous analysis for the static interaction of a cylindrical thin‐walled pile with an inhomogeneous isotropic elastic half‐space under vertical, horizontal, and torsional forces individually applied at the top of pile. The inhomogeneity is specified with the exponential variation of shear modulus along depth of the embedding medium, and the Poisson's ratio is assumed to be constant. By means of a set of Green's functions for pile and soil medium and satisfying the compatibility conditions between the 2 interacting media, the formulation is reduced to coupled Fredholm integral equations. Using the adaptive‐gradient elements, capable of capturing the singular stress transfer at both ends of the pile, a numerical procedure is developed and utilized for evaluating the relevant integral equations and studying the inhomogeneity effect on the soil‐pile interaction responses. The analysis results have been validated for different soil‐pile modulus ratios under axial load and for a Poisson's ratio of 0.3 under lateral load. The procedure does not consider the nonlinear behavior of the soil medium or plastic yielding in the pile section, and the impact of the unreliable results for the case of high Poisson's ratio is not examined.