Tam Ölçekli Yanal Yükleme Testinin Sayısal Modellemesi

Abstract

Ports are very important structures at the national and international sea transportation. These structures are also in a critical position on economy and commerce capacity by providing shipping and distribution services. It is very important to design a port structure, considering its stability and resistance along its service time. In the design of this type of structure, the lateral loads caused by during ship berthing, wind and wave loads etc. can be more important compared with vertical loads. The design and the performance of a port structure foundation should be investigated by full scale field tests considering the service loads. The aim of this study is to investigate the performance of the steel pipe pile under lateral load by full scale in-situ loading tests at Mersin International Port Construction area in the Mediterranean Sea. Full scale pile lateral loading test (PLLT) on a single offshore pile has been conducted at the project site and the test pile has been loaded up to 2 times the service load with 4 loading-unloading cycles. In addition, a numerical analysis has been performed to simulate the real lateral load-deflection behavior by using Plaxis 3D finite element software. It has been observed that, the analysis results obtained from the numerical model has been reflected the test pile lateral load-displacement behavior with good convergence.