Abstract

A mathematical formulation is proposed for the analysis of a pile group embedded in unsaturated soil subjected to horizontal time-harmonic vibration. The unsaturated soil is governed by the motion theory of three-phase poroelastic medium, and the piles with fixed connection to cap are modeled as Timoshenko beam models. By introducing Helmholtz decomposition to the governing equations, the resistance and attenuation function of displacement of the surrounding soil are theoretically derived. Then, the impedances of pile group in frequency domain are evaluated by utilizing the superposition approach based on the dynamic interaction factors. The internal forces of piles induced by both kinematic effects arising from the adjacent pile motion and inertial effect from pile cap, as well as the degree of contribution of the two effects have been investigated. The accuracy of the proposed method was validated by its comparison with a benchmark solution for the corresponding single phase medium problem. A comprehensive parametric study is performed to depict the effects of saturation, permeability, and pile group arrangement, and indicating that the saturation and permeability exert considerable effects on the nearly saturated condition, by contrast, the unsaturated case is much less affected.

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