Kinematic bending of single piles in layered soil

Abstract

A continuum solution is proposed for the kinematic bending of single piles embedded in a layered soil deposit. A displacement model is proposed to represent the displacement of the model of interest incorporating soil–pile interaction. The displacement functions and the attenuation function are obtained in the coupled form by means of Hamilton’s principle. Then an iterative procedure is applied to solve the coupled functions. The contributions of the proposed model are threefold: (1) The continuity of the Winkler springs is considered. (2) The effects of the inertial force of the surrounding soil on the kinematic response of the piles are taken into account. (3) An improved formula is proposed for the kinematic pile bending strain at the interface of two-layer soil deposit. A parametric study is performed to investigate the influence of the soil inhomogeneity on the kinematic bending of single piles. The results highlight that the stiffness discontinuity significantly influences the kinematic bending of single piles. There is a critical depth considering the effect of the pile head estimated as a non-dimensional length of the pile.