• Structural Engineering and Mechanics
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• v.35 no.2
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• pp.191-203
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• 2010

To investigate the critical buckling load and post-buckling behavior of an axially loaded pile entirely embedded in soil, the non-linear large deflection differential equation for a pinned pile, based on the Winkler-model and the discretionary distribution function of the foundation coefficient along pile shaft, was established by energy method. Assuming that the deflection function was a power series of some perturbation parameter according to the boundary condition and load in the pile, the non-linear large deflection differential equation was transformed to a series of linear differential equations by using perturbation approach. By taking the perturbation parameter at middle deflection, the higher-order asymptotic solution of load-deflection was then found. Effect of ratios of soil depth to pile length, and ratios of pile stiffness to soil stiffness on the critical buckling load and performance of piles (entirely embedded and partially embedded) after flexural buckling were analyzed. Results show that the buckling load capacity increases as the ratios of pile stiffness to soil stiffness increasing. The pile performance will be more stable when ratios of soil depth to pile length, and soil stiffness to pile stiffness decrease.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.87-96
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• 2021

Ground motions recorded in near-fault sites, where the rupture propagates toward the site, are significantly different from those observed in far-fault regions. In this research, finite element modeling is used to investigate the effect of pile cap stiffness on the seismic response of soil-pile-structure systems under near-fault ground motions. The Von Wolffersdorff hypoplastic model with the intergranular strain concept is applied for modeling of granular soil (sand) and the behavior of structure is considered to be non-linear. Eight fault-normal near-field ground motion records, recorded on rock, are applied to the model. The numerical method developed is verified by comparing the results with an experimental test (shaking table test) for a soil-pile-structure system. The results, obtained from finite element modeling under near-fault ground motions, show that when the value of cap stiffness increases, the drift ratio of the structure decreases, whereas the pile relative displacement increases. Also, the residual deformations in the piles are due to the non-linear behavior of soil around the piles.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.37 no.2
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• pp.167-178
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• 2024

The natural frequency shift under cyclic environmental loads is a key issue in the design of monopile-based offshore wind power turbines because of their dynamic sensitivity. Existing evidence reveals that the natural frequency shift of the turbine system in sand is related to the varying foundation stiffness, which is caused by soil deformation around the monopile under cyclic loads. Therefore, it is an urgent need to investigate the effect of soil deformation on the system frequency. In the present paper, three generalized geometric models that can describe soil deformation under two-way cyclic loads are proposed. On this basis, the cycling-induced changes in soil parameters around the monopile are quantified. A theoretical approach considering three-spring foundation stiffness is employed to calculate the natural frequency during cycling. Further, a parametric study is conducted to describe and evaluate the frequency shift characteristics of the system under different conditions of sand relative density, pile slenderness ratio and pile-soil relative stiffness. The results indicate that the frequency shift trends are mainly affected by the pile-soil relative stiffness. Following the relevant conclusions, a design optimization is proposed to avoid resonance of the monopile-based wind turbines during their service life.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.37 no.4
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• pp.383-393
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• 2024

Monopile foundations of offshore wind turbines embedded in soft clay are subjected to the long-term cyclic lateral loads induced by winds, currents, and waves, the vibration of monopile leads to the accumulation of pore pressure and cyclic strains in the soil in its vicinity, which poses a threat to the safety operation of monopile. The researchers mainly focused on the hysteretic stress-strain relationship of soft clay and kinds of stiffness degradation models have been adopted, which may consume considerable computing resources and is not applicable for the long-term bearing performance analysis of monopile. In this study, a modified cyclic stiffness degradation model considering the effect of plastic strain and pore pressure change has been proposed and validated by comparing with the triaxial test results. Subsequently, the effects of cyclic load ratio, pile aspect ratio, number of load cycles, and length to embedded depth ratio on the accumulated rotation angle and pore pressure are presented. The results indicate the number of load cycles can significantly affect the accumulated rotation angle of monopile, whereas the accumulated pore pressure distribution along the pile merely changes with pile diameter, embedded length, and the number of load cycles, the stiffness of monopile can be significantly weakened by decreasing the embedded depth ratio L/H of monopile. The stiffness degradation of soil is more significant in the passive earth pressure zone, in which soil liquefaction is likely to occur. Furthermore, the suitability of the "accumulated rotation angle" and "accumulated pore pressure" design criteria for determining the required cyclic load ratio are discussed.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2005.03a
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• pp.33-40
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• 2005

Impact-echo test, a kind of simple and economical method to evaluate the integrity of drilled piles has some limitations to use because the stress wave can be generated only on the head of a pile and the wave propagation in the pile with surrounding soils are very complicated. Numerical analyses and model tests in the laboratory have shown that both the ratio of length to diameter of a pile and the stiffness ratio of pile to soil have influence on the resolution of testing results. Full scale testing piles which have artificial defects were used to verify the capability of impact-echo technique as a tool for the pile integrity evaluation. Behaviour of the reflected signal of stress wave was investigated according to the type of defects. Elastic modulus of the pile was calculated using the wave velocity in the pile and the unconfined strength of concrete specimen. Influences of the stiffness difference between the pile and the ground on the characteristics of a wave signal were also examined.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.35 no.12
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• pp.25-33
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• 2019

In this study, the axial stiffness of existing piles (K_ve) of vertical extension remodeled building was quantified through theoretical and experimental approaches. Theoretically induced upper and lower boundary of the pile axial stiffness was estimated by using the formula proposed by Randolph and Wroth (1978), which can estimate the axial stiffness of rigid and flexible pile subjected under soil confinement. In addition, 38 cases of field measurement data on deteriorated piles with various diameters constructed in the period between 1995 - 1997 were taken in to account by overlapping the field data with the theoretical boundary of the axial stiffness. Through this the maximum axial stiffness of existing pile due to deterioration and long service time was presented for various slenderness ratio (L/D), which can be used in estimating the necessary axial stiffness of reinforcing piles(K_vr) for the vertical extension remodeling. The lower 95% value of the estimated axial stiffness of existing pile will be induced through statistical processing.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.29 no.11
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• pp.29-47
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• 2013

This study undertook research on the sections of 90 harbor structures which applied a pile-type soil improvement using the soil-cement pile and then, determined the minimum replacement rate for each section, showing sufficient stability in all relevant studies including numerical analysis. The reliability of the numerical analysis was verified by a centrifuge model test. As a result of the study, it was revealed that when the foundation soil is too soft ($s_u$ = under 15 kPa), it is unsuitable to apply a pile-type ground improvement to a soil improvement regardless of types of super structures. And a pile-type soil improvement was found to be suitable for a harbor structure with the relative stiffness ratio (n) of less than 50~75 at a maximum and the 2~3 MPa strength of the soil-cement pile. Furthermore the governing factor for the minimum replacement rate for the pile-type soil improvement was turned out to be the allowable horizontal displacement. Therefore, the primary review to see the applicability of the pile-type soil improvement requires the evaluation of horizontal displacements.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.31 no.5
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• pp.477-488
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• 2022

Pile composite foundation (PCF) has been commonly applied in practice. Existing research has focused primarily on semi-infinite media having equal pile lengths with little attention given to the effects of inclined bedrock and dissimilar pile lengths. This investigation considers the effects of inclined bedrock on vertical loaded PCF with dissimilar pile lengths. The pile-soil system is decomposed into fictitious piles and extended soil. The Fredholm integral equation about the axial force along fictitious piles is then established based on the compatibility of axial strain between fictitious piles and extended soil. Then, an iterative procedure is induced to calculate the PCF characteristics with a rigid cap. The results agree well with two field load tests of a single pile and numerical simulation case. The settlement and load transfer behaviors of dissimilar 3-pile PCFs and the effects of inclined bedrock are analyzed, which shows that the embedded depth of the inclined bedrock significantly affects the pile-soil load sharing ratios, non-dimensional vertical stiffness N₀/wdE_s, and differential settlement for different length-diameter ratios of the pile l/d and pile-soil stiffness ratio k conditions. The differential settlement and pile-soil load sharing ratios are also influenced by the inclined angle of the bedrock for different k and l/d. The developed model helps better understand the PCF characteristics over inclined bedrock under vertical loading.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.167-185
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• 1999

A series of model tests was performed to find the characteristics of lateral behavior of single rigid pile. This paper shows the results of model tests on the lateral behavior of single rigid driven pile in non-homogeneous(two layered) Nak-Dong River sands. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of the ratio of lower layer thickness to embedded pile length, the coefficient ratio of the subgrade reaction and the pile construction conditions(driven & embedded piles) on the characteristics of lateral behavior of single pile. The results of model tests show that the lateral behavior in non-homogeneous soil depends upon drop energy considerably, that is, in the case of H/L=0.75, as the drop energy increases three times the decrease percentage increases about 2.12 times. In the driven pile with non-homogeneous soil of $E_{h1}/E_{h2}=5.56$, the effect of upper layer with large stiffness on the decrease of lateral deflection is remarkably smaller than embedded pile. In non-homogeneous soil, the maximum bending moment of driven pile is in the range of 100 132% in comparison with embedded pile. The reason is that the stiffness of soil around pile increases with drop vibration and so the pile behavior is similar to the flexible pile behavior by means of the increase of relative stiffness of pile, In this paper, the experimental equations for lateral load and H/L on $y_D/y_E \; & \; MBM_D/MBM_E$ are suggested from model tests.

• Earthquakes and Structures
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.273-286
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• 2020

The pile group foundation is widely used for gravity pier of high-speed railway bridges in China. If a moderate or strong earthquake occurs, the pile-surrounding soil will exhibit obvious nonlinearity and significant pile group effect. In this study, an improved pushover analysis model for the pile group foundation with consideration of pile group effect is presented and validated by the quasi-static test. The improved model uses simplified springs to simulate the soil lateral resistance, side friction and tip resistance. PM (axial load-bending moment) plastic hinge model is introduced to simulate the impact of the axial force changing of pile group on their elastic-plastic characteristics. The pile group effect is considered in stress-stain relations of the lateral soil resistance with a reduction factor. The influence factors on nonlinear characteristics and plastic hinge distribution of the pile group foundation are discussed, including the pier height, longitudinal reinforcement ratio and stirrup ratio of the pile, and soil mechanical parameters. Furthermore, the displacement ductility factor, resistance increase factor and yielding stiffness ratio are provided to evaluate the seismic performance of soil-pile system. A case study for the pile group foundation of a railway simply supported beam bridge with a 32 m-span is conducted by numerical analysis. It is shown that the ultimate lateral force of pile group is not determined by the yielding force of the single one in these piles. Therefore, the pile group effect is essential for the seismic performance evaluation of the railway bridge with pile group foundation.