Numerical analysis of the seismic inertial and kinematic effects on pile bending moment in liquefiable soils

Abstract

In an effort to study the seismic pile moment induced by the combined structure–pile inertial and soil–pile kinematic effects for single piles and pile groups in liquefiable ground, an extensive series of 3D finite element simulations are conducted in this paper. The roles that lateral inertial and kinematic interactions play on the pile moment are found to differ in different soil–pile–structure systems. Inertial structure force and kinematic soil displacement of the same direction could cause pile head moments of the same or opposite directions depending on the rotational constraint at the pile head. Kinematic interaction has a dominating influence on the pile moment for pile foundations with pile head rotation constrained by the existence of a pile cap, while inertial interaction is strongly influential for free-head piles. The coupling of inertial and kinematic interactions depends on the soil–pile–structure system configuration and the magnitudes of the inertial structure force and the kinematic soil displacement. Many current pseudo-static methods for calculating the seismic pile moment through summing a percentage of the kinematic induced moment with another percentage of the inertial induced moment could produce very inaccurate results under certain conditions.