• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.76 no.2
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• pp.223-237
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• 2020

Transmission towers have come to represent one of the most important infrastructures in today's society, which may suffer severe earthquakes during their service lives. However, in the conventional seismic analyses of transmission towers, the towers are normally assumed to be fixed on the ground without considering the effect of soil-structure interaction (SSI) on the pile-supported transmission tower. This assumption may lead to inaccurate seismic performance estimations of transmission towers. In the present study, the seismic response and failure analyses of pile-supported transmission towers considering SSI are comprehensively performed based on the finite element method. Specifically, two detailed finite element (FE) models of the employed pile-supported transmission tower with and without consideration of SSI effects are established in ABAQUS analysis platform, in which SSI is simulated by the classical p-y approach. A simulation method is developed to stochastically synthesize the earthquake ground motions at different soil depths (i.e. depth-varying ground motions, DVGMs). The impacts of SSI on the dynamic characteristic, seismic response and failure modes are investigated and discussed by using the generated FE models and ground motions. Numerical results show that the vibration mode shapes of the pile-supported transmission towers with and without SSI are basically same; however, SSI can significantly affect the dynamic characteristic by altering the vibration frequencies of different modes. Neglecting the SSI and the variability of earthquake motions at different depths may cause an underestimate and overestimate on the seismic responses, respectively. Moreover, the seismic failure mode of pile-supported transmission towers is also significantly impacted by the SSI and DVGMs.

• Geotechnical Engineering
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• v.7 no.1
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• pp.41-52
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• 1991

A study of the effects of dynamic pile-soil-structure interactions on the response of super- structures, supported by group piles, are presented in this paper. The dynamic impedance functions of single pile generated by soil-pile interactions are obtained and compared among others using the methods proposed by Novak, Gazetas, and Kuhlemeyer, and using the equivalent cantilever method. Group pile effects are also considered by the following approaches : neglecting interaction effects : group efficiency ratio concept : static interaction approach . and dynamic interaction approach. The responses of a nuclear containment structure are obtained by using the elastic half-space analysis, based on the impedance functions mentioned above. Main conclusions drawn from this study are as follows : 1. The numerical results of the impedance functions calculated by each method were quite different : the Novak's was the smallest, and the Kuhlemeyer's the highest. Considering group effects, similar values in each approach were obtained for the stiffness : the difference was very big for the damping. 2. The top displacement of the structure was reduced by 20% or more by pile installations. However, the base shear force, the base moment, and the resonance frequency were increased by more than two times due to stiffening effect of the ground by pile installations. 3. Whether frequency dependant impedence functions or frequency independant functions were used, the responses of the structure were not so much affected by the choice of the impedance functions. 4. The reduction effect of the top displacement increased with the increase of the maximum ground acceleration.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2005.03a
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• pp.264-271
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• 2005

Sand pile method, such as sand drain method and sand compaction pile method, has been popularly used as an improvement method for soft clay grounds. The effect of accelerating consolidation of soft clay grounds has been evaluated with Barron's solution. By the way, the consolidation behavior of soft clay ground with sand piles strongly depends on both the nonlinear mechanical interaction between sand piles and surrounding clays and the degradation permeability of clays. In this paper, the method for determining consolidation parameters of soft clay ground with sand drains by using Barron's solution was proposed, through a series of numerical simulations. Through the method, the change in both volume compressibility and permeability during consolidation was reasonably evaluated.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.57-69
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• 2001

Sand pile is widely used as a ground improvement method. Although the primary purpose of constructing sand pile is accelerating consolidation, composite ground effect also can be gained by constructing sand pile. This study was accomplished to understand composite ground effect on the ground improved by sand piles which were applied as vertical drainage material when area replacement ratio was small relatively. For determining bearing capacities of origin ground and sand piles and analysing interaction between embankment and origin ground, bearing tests and earth pressure monitoring are performed. From the results, it turned out that the contribution of sand pile as a load bearing mechanism is not substantial. However, the bearing capacity of sand pile was increased to sixty percentages when compared with origin ground. The increasement of bearing capacity could be caused the change of consolidation characteristics during the process of consolidation by overburden load. Therefore, the composite ground effects depending on stiffness increasement of sand pile would be estimated as a factor decreasing consolidation settlement.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.21-32
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• 2024

This study performed the seismic response analysis of an LNG storage tank supported by a disconnected piled raft foundation (DPRF) with a load transfer platform (LTP). For this purpose, a precise analytical model with simultaneous consideration of Fluid-Structure Interaction (FSI) and Soil-Structure Interaction (SSI) was used. The effect of the LTP characteristics (thickness, stiffness) of the DPRF system on the seismic response of the superstructure (inner and outer tanks) and piles was analyzed. The analytical results were compared with the response of the piled raft foundation (PRF) system. The following conclusions can be drawn from the numerical results: (1) The DPRF system has a smaller bending moment and axial force at the head of the pile than the PRF system, even if the thickness and stiffness of the LTP change; (2) The DPRF system has a slight stiffness of the LTP and the superstructure member force can increase with increasing thickness. This is because as the stiffness of the LTP decreases and the thickness increases, the natural frequency of the LTP becomes closer to the natural frequency of the superstructure, which may affect the response of the superstructure. Therefore, when applying the DPRF system, it is recommended that the sensitivity analysis of the seismic response to the thickness and stiffness of the LTP must be performed.

• Journal of the Earthquake Engineering Society of Korea
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.11-17
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• 1997

Seismic analyses of structures were carried out in the past assuming a right base and Ignoring the characteristics of foundations and the properties of the underlying soil. Resent soil-structure interaction studies show that seismic response of structure can be affected significantly by these fators. Typical effects of the soil-structure interaction are the kinematic interaction of a rigid massiess foundation and the inertial interaction between underlying soil and structure. The kinematic interaction effect is particularly important for embedded foundations and can be ignored for surface foundations with vertically propagating waves. In this study, seismic response of structure was investigated with four buildings in Mexico City considering only the inertial interaction effect and using the E-W components of the 1985 Mexico City earthquake records. The study was carried out for surface foundations and pile foundations with linear and nonlinear soil conditions, comparing the results with those of the rigid base.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.20 no.5
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• pp.433-445
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• 2020

A new code, called PRaFULL (Piled Raft Foundation Under Lateral Load), was developed for the analysis of laterally loaded Combined Pile Raft Foundation (CPRF). The proposed code considers the contribution offered by the raft-soil contact and the interactions between all the CPRF system components. The nonlinear behaviour of the reinforced concrete pile and the soil are accounted. As shallower soil layers are of great relevance in the lateral response of a pile foundation, PRaFULL includes the possibility to consider layered soil profiles with appropriate properties. The shadowing effect on the ultimate soil pressure is accounted, when dealing with pile groups, as proposed by the Strain Wedge Model. PRaFULL BEM code obviously requires less computational resources compared to FEM (Finite Element Method) or FDM (Finite Difference Method) codes. The proposed code was validated in the linear elastic range by comparisons with the code APRAF (Analysis of Piled Raft Foundations). The reliability of the procedure to predict piled raft performance was then verified in nonlinear range by comparisons with both centrifuge tests and computer code PRAB.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.187-200
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• 2020

In the current work, a series of three-dimensional finite element analyses have been conducted to investigate the behaviour of pre-existing single piles in response to adjacent tunnelling by considering the tunnel face pressures and the relative locations of the pile tips with respect to the tunnel. Via numerical modelling, the effect of the face pressures on the pile behaviour has been analysed. In addition, the analyses have concentrated on the ground settlements, the pile head settlements and the shear stress transfer mechanism at the pile-soil interface. The settlements of the pile directly above the tunnel crown (with a vertical distance between the pile tip and the tunnel crown of 0.25D, where D is the tunnel diameter) with a face pressure of 50% of the in situ horizontal soil stress at the tunnel springline decreased by approximately 38% compared to the corresponding pile settlements with the minimum face pressure, namely, 25% of the in situ horizontal soil stress at the tunnel springline. Furthermore, the smaller the face pressure is, the larger the tunnelling-induced ground movements, the axial pile forces and the interface shear stresses. The ground settlements and the pile settlements were heavily affected by the face pressures and the positions of the pile tip with respect to the tunnel. When the piles were inside the tunnel influence zone, tensile forces were induced on piles, while compressive pile forces were expected to develop for piles that are outside the influence zone and on the boundary. In addition, the computed results have been compared with relevant previous studies that were reported in the literature. The behaviour of the piles that is triggered by adjacent tunnelling has been extensively examined and analysed by considering the several key features in substantial detail.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.38 no.4
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• pp.47-58
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• 2022

Many 1g shaking table tests with an SDOF structure supported by a single pile were performed to evaluate the soil-structure interaction (SSI) effect. Since most structures supported by group piles are MDOF structures with columns, the SSI effect is simulated using a large 1g shaking table test and numerical analysis. According to the results, the movement in the piles tends to increase with input acceleration and when the input frequency is similar to the natural frequency. Furthermore, the slope of the dynamic p-y curve remains constant regardless of the variation of acceleration and input frequency. According to the results of the dynamic p-y backbone curve and the moment of group piles, a center pile with a leading pile has more soil resistance than side piles with a trailing pile, and the effect of group piles is observed above the 7D center to center pile distance.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.171-178
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• 2021

Wave interaction in marine structures is an important issue where requires to be considered in view of number of bases, piles and arrangement method. In this research, effect of waves and their forces on piles with different arrangements was investigated using numerical modeling. Simulations were performed in presence of bracing elements between piles against the force of waves and also were compared with simple arrangement without bracing elements in different arrangements. Results showed that in models that were fitted with bracing elements, the displacement rate reduced about 96%, and tension tolerances increased more than 53% and abutment responses also decreased about 70%.