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Kinematic interaction analysis of piles in layered soils Analyse de l'interaction

cinématique des pieux en sols stratifiés

Conference Paper · September 2007

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 Kinematic interaction analysis of piles in layered soils
Analyse de l’interaction cinématique des pieux en sols stratifiés

R. Cairo & G. Dente

University of Calabria, Italy

ABSTRACT
The analysis of seismic soil-structure interaction may be generally performed in two steps: kinematic and
inertial interaction. In the first step, the so-called foundation input motion is determined. In the second step
the response of the structure to this motion is calculated. Usually, the kinematic interaction is neglected and
the inertial interaction is only performed, applying the free-field motion to the base of the structure. For
surface foundations and homogeneous soils this leads to conservative results, but in the presence of pile
foundations in layered soils the kinematic interaction effects should be taken into account (EC-8). This paper
presents a method for the kinematic interaction analysis of single piles in nonhomogeneous soils. It is based
on the stiffness method and makes use of the dynamic stiffness matrices of horizontally layered soils. The
results obtained are compared with those provided by existing solutions.

RÉSUMÉ
L’analyse de l’interaction sismique sol-structure est généralement effectuée en deux phases distinctes: d’une
interaction cinématique et d’une interaction inertielle. Dans la première phase, on évolue le mouvement de la
fondation soumise à une sollicitation sismique. Dans la deuxième phase, on calcule la réponse de la structure
au movement appliqué à la base. D’habitude, on néglige l’interaction cinématique on exécute seulement celle
inertielle, en appliquant à la fondation directement le mouvement free-field. Dans le cas de fondations
superficielles et de sols homogènes, ceci se traduit dans une méthode de calcule de type conservative.
Toutefois, en présence de fondations sur des pieux en sols stratifiés, les effets de l’interaction cinématique
doivent être pris en consideration (EC-8). Cette étude présente une méthode pour les analyse de l'interaction
cinématique des pieux isolé en sols ehétérogènes. L’analyse est basée sur la méthode des rigidités et utilise les
matrices dynamiques de rigidité pour simuler le comportement des sols stratifiés. Les résultats obtenus sont
confrontés avec ceux fournis par les solutions existantes.

Keywords: pile, layered soils, kinematic response factors, bending moment.

1 INTRODUCTION Roësset 1974). In the first, the foundation input

Local site conditions and soil flexibility play an
important role in determining the characteristics of
seismic waves motion as well as the dynamic
response of structures. In the presence of piles, two
different effects of seismic soil-structure interaction
can be important: the variation between the free-
field motion and the motion that occurs at the
foundation level (foundation input motion); the
deformations (and the subsequent bending moments)
of the piles imposed not only by the loads applied by
the structure but also due to the passage of seismic
waves through the surrounding soil. According to
the superposition principle, soil-structure interaction
analysis can be performed in two steps (Kausel &
motion (FIM) is determined, ignoring the mass of
the structure. If pile cap is rigid, the structure itself is
not required. This step is called kinematic
interaction. In the second (inertial interaction), the
response of the structure resting on frequency-
dependent springs and dashpots (impedance
functions) and subjected to the FIM is computed.
Pile kinematic response has been studied by a lot
of researchers: Blaney et al. (1976), Wolf & von Arx
(1978), Kaynia & Kausel (1982, 1991), Gazetas
(1984), Mamoon & Banerjee (1990), Fan et al.
(1991), Kaynia & Novak (1992), Kavvadas &
Gazetas (1993), Mylonakis et al. (1997), Wu & Finn
(1997), Bentley & El Naggar (2000), Nikolaou et al.
(2001), among others. Particular attention has been
dedicated to the motion of the pile head, while pile
curvature and bending have been only recently
investigated. As a result, practical engineers are not
used to deal with kinematic effects, partly for lack of
reliable simple solutions. Seismic codes (Eurocode
EC-8, OPCM 3274/2003) and provisions (NEHRP-
97, TCLEE 1998, AGI 2005) have recently
recognized these aspects of soil-structure interaction
and prescribe that kinematic effects should be taken
into account under certain circumstances.
This paper presents a method to perform the
kinematic interaction analysis of single piles. It is
formulated on the base of the stiffness method
(Samuelsson & Zienkiewicz 2006) and makes use of
the discrete dynamic stiffness matrices derived by
Foinquinos & Roësset (2000) to simulate the
response of layered soils. The approach is an
extension of a precedent work proposed by Cairo et
al. (2005) to analyse single piles and pile groups
subjected to vertical harmonic loadings. This study
is limited to linear, viscoelastic behaviour of the
soil-pile system. The results are compared with
those provided by existing solutions.
Layer 1
2 horizontal displacements and rotations of the pile;
•
• stiffness matrix and mass matrix of the pile, whose
• L
j of the structural analysis (Clough & Penzien 1993);
•
•
• corresponding stress field; [Ks] denotes the dynamic
d
ug(t)=Ugeiωt
Figure 1. Single pile in layered soil excited by harmonically
propagating waves.
2 METHOD OF ANALYSIS
Figure 1 shows a pile embedded in a layered soil and
excited by harmonically propagating S waves. Each
soil layer is modelled as an elastic material of
Young’s modulus Es, Poisson’s ratio νs and mass
density ρs; the pile is considered to be an elastic
cylinder of length L, diameter d, Young’s modulus
Ep and mass density ρp. In order to account for the
effect of the material damping, Young’s modulus is
replaced by its complex counterpart with βs and βp
indicating the damping ratio of the soil and pile,
respectively. Moreover, it is assumed that the soil-
pile system is under steady-state conditions,
therefore any time-dependent variable is in general
expressed as a complex quantity multiplied by the
factor eiωt, where i = 1 and ω is the vibration
frequency. In the following, this factor will be
omitted for the sake of brevity, since it is shared by
all time-dependent variables. The solution in the
frequency domain is extended to the time domain
using the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT).
Kinematic soil-structure interaction is a problem
of wave-diffraction. It consists in determining the
effect that a region (a pile foundation, for instance)
with mechanical properties differing from those of
undisturbed soil has on the excited motion. The
effective excitation {up} acting on the foundation is
formed by the sum of the free-field motion {uf} and
the diffracted wave motion {us} (Whitman & Bielak
1980), also called scattered motion:
{u p } = {u f } + {u s } (1)
The same decomposition for the stress field
remains. After discretizing the pile by a finite
number of one-dimensional elements, the following
dynamic equilibrium equation can be written (Cairo
& Dente 2007):
([ K p ] + [ K s ] − ω 2 [ M p ]){u p } = [ K s ]{u f } − {Pf } (2)
where {up} is the vector containing the nodal
[Kp] and [Mp] indicate, respectively, the global
terms can be determined using standard procedures
{uf} is the free-field motion and {Pf} the
stiffness matrix of the soil. In order to determine
[Ks], a procedure based on the discrete stiffness
matrices proposed by Foinquinos & Roësset (2000)
to analyse horizontally layered soils is employed
(Cairo & Dente 2007). These stiffness matrices can
be used to evaluate the free-field soil response, too
(Cairo & Dente 2007). Once element nodal
displacements and rotations of the pile are
determined, shear forces and bending moments can
be computed.
3 COMPARISON WITH EXISTING
SOLUTIONS
In order to assess the accuracy of the proposed
procedure, some comparisons with other solutions
are presented. The first concerns a single pile
embedded in a homogeneous soil and resting on a
rigid bedrock, where the pile is considered to be
hinged. The bedrock is excited by vertically
propagating S waves with frequency ω, and the pile
head may be rotationally fixed or free. The
displacement and the rotation kinematic factors
I u =| U p | / | U f 0 | (3a)
 I φ =| Φ p | d / | U f 0 | (3b)
are calculated and compared with the solution
obtained by Ahmad et al. (2007) using a Winkler-
type model. Iu and Iφ express the amplitudes
(absolute values) of horizontal displacement and
rotation of the pile head, normalized by the
amplitude of the free-field ground surface
displacement.
In Figure 2 the kinematic response factors are
plotted as functions of the dimensionless frequency
a0=ωd/Vs, where Vs is the soil shear wave velocity.
The data used in the analyses are: L/d=20, ρp/ρs=1.6,
νs=0.4, βs=0.10.
As can be seen, at lower frequencies, the fixed-
head piles follow the movement of the ground while,
at higher frequencies, they experience considerably
reduced deformations. For free-head piles a
rotational motion arises. The stiffer piles filter out,
to a greater extent, the high frequency components
of the free-field motion. Although some differences
among the results can be observed, the agreement
may on the whole be thought satisfactory in spite of
the different methods used.
A particular case is being presented in Figure 3
(from Gazetas et al. 1992). It refers to a two-layer
soil profile with Vs1/Vs2=1/6, where Vs1 and Vs2 are,
respectively, the shear wave velocity of the upper
layer with thickness H1=5d, and that of the lower
layer. The kinematic displacement factor of a fixed-
head end-bearing pile is plotted versus the
dimensionless frequency a0. The other parameters
assumed are: L/d=20, Ep/Es2=1000, ρp/ρs=1.4, νs=0.4
and βs=0.05. The presence of the thin soft top layer
causes Iu to fluctuate with a0, and, at certain
frequencies, the pile head deflection may even be
greater than the free-field surface displacement.
Kavvadas & Gazetas (1993) studied a free-head
end-bearing pile embedded in a two-layer soil
deposit, resting on a rigid bedrock and subjected to
vertically propagating harmonic S waves. In
particular, the authors investigated the influence of
the pile-to-soil stiffness ratio Ep/Es1 (the subscript 1
refers to the upper soil layer), the ratio of the S wave
velocities Vs2/Vs1 of the two soil layers, the ratio of
the thickness of the soil layers H1/H2, the pile
slenderness ratio L/d.

1.5 1.5
fixed-head (E p /E s =1000) fixed-head (E p /E s =10000)

1.0 1.0
Iu Iu
0.5 0.5
this study
Ahmad et al. (2007)
0.0 0.0
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
a0 a0
1.6 0.50
this study
1.2 Iφ Ahmad et al. (2007)

Iu 0.8 0.25

0.4 free-head
free-head (E p /E s =1000) (E p /E s =1000)
0.0 0.00
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
a0 a0
1.6 0.50
free-head (E p /E s =10000) free-head (E p /E s =10000)
1.2 Iφ

Iu 0.8 0.25

0.4 this study

Ahmad et al. (2007)
0.0 0.00
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
a0 a0

Figure 2. Kinematic response factors.

 2 fundamental frequency of the deposit. The
Gazetas et al. (1992)
this study
maximum bending moment increases when the shear
Iu wave velocity contrast between the lower and the
upper layer, Vs2/Vs1, increases. Moreover, Mm
1 increases with pile slenderness. As Figure 5 shows,
the maximum bending moment (for ω=ω1) occurs at
the layer interface. The results obtained in this study
compare well with those calculated by Kavvadas &
Gazetas (1993) using a Winkler-type formulation.
0
0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5
4
a0=ωd/Vs2 M /ρp d Ü g
0 3000 6000
Figure 3. Kinematic displacement factor of a fixed-head pile: 0.0
effect of a thin soft top layer.

5000
this study z /L
Mm
Kavvadas & Gazetas (1993)
ρ p d 4U&& g

2500 0.5 G
C D
D

0
0 1 2 3
ω / ω1 Kavvadas & Gazetas (1993)
5000 this study
G Kavvadas & 1.0
Mm Gazetas (1993)
this study
ρ p d 4U&& g
Figure 5. Amplitude of bending moments along the pile at the
fundamental natural frequency of the deposit (cases C, D, G).
2500
D

Lastly, the response of a fixed-head pile to

E
0
0 1 2 3
ω/ ω 1
Figure 4. Maximum bending moment amplitude as a function
of frequency: (C) L/d=20, Vs2/Vs1=1.73; (D) L/d=20, Vs2/Vs1=3;
(E) L/d=10, Vs2/Vs1=3; (G) L/d=40, Vs2/Vs1=3.
Figure 4 plots the dimensionless maximum
bending moment amplitude Mm (at the most adverse
location along the pile) as a function of the ratio
ω/ω1 of the excitation frequency to the fundamental
natural frequency of the soil deposit. The data used
in the analyses are: Ep/Es1=5000, H1/H2=1,
ρp/ρs=1.6, νs=0.4, βs=0.10, βp=0.05. In the cases
examined, the largest value of Mm occurs at the
transient seismic excitation is illustrated. Nikolaou
& Gazetas (1997) considered a relatively rigid
concrete pile, embedded in a 9.5 m thick top layer of
soft clay and socketed 6 m into a deep layer of dense
sand. The pile has Ep=25 GPa, d=1.3m, L=15.5 m,
ρp=2.5 Mg/m3. The soil deposit, resting on a rigid
bedrock, has total height of 30 m, shear wave
velocities of 80 m/s (first layer) and 330 m/s (second
layer). Two actual accelerograms, scaled to 0.10g
peak acceleration, are used as excitation at the rock
level. They are assumed to consist solely of
vertically propagating S waves. The envelopes of
peak moments in the time domain are shown in
Figure 6. As can be seen, the maximum bending
moments at the pile head and at the layer interface
are almost identical. The present method is in
reasonable agreement with the “Winkler”
formulation developed by Nikolaou & Gazetas
(1997).
 M (MNm) dynamic stiffness matrices of layered soils, which
0 1 2 3 permit soil layering effect to be reliably accounted
0
for. The study is limited to linear, viscoelastic
behaviour of the soil-pile system. The agreement
between the present solution and the results provided
by other formulations is found to be satisfactory.
This work is part of the RELUIS Research
4 Project “Innovative methods for the design of
geotechnical systems”, promoted by the Department
Anderson, Loma Prieta
of Civil Protection of the Italian Government.
z (m)

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4 CONCLUDING REMARKS
A method has been proposed to analyse the
kinematic interaction of single piles in layered soils.
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experienced by the head of the piles and the bending
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