A streamline solution for rigid laterally loaded piles in permafrost

A. FORIERO
A N D B. LADANYI
~ c o l ePolytechnique de Montreal, Box 6079, Station A , Montreal, Que., Canada H3C 3A7
Received December 2, 1988
Accepted May 11, 1989

A streamline solution for the design of laterally loaded rigid piles in permafrost is presented. The proposed method
relies on a power law to describe the rate dependence of permafrost creep response. It describes the soil movement
with a kinematically admissible velocity field and estimates the overall reaction at a given pile section with the bound
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theorem for a creeping material. The approach is valid only for a secondary creep rate and a stationary state of stress.
Key words: pile, lateral load, velocity field, secondary creep rate.

Pour la conception des pieux rigides charges lateralement, etablis dans le pergelisol, on prksente une solution basee
sur le concept d'un champ de lignes d'ecoulement. Cette methode utilise une loi de puissances pour exprimer l'effet du
taux de dkformation sur la resistance du pergelisol et definit le mouvement du sol par un champ de vitesses cinemati-
quement admissible. Ceci lui permet d'estimer la reaction globale a une section donnee du pieu par un theorkme d'itats
limites. Cette approche n'est valable que pour un taux de fluage secondaire et pour l'etat de contraintes stationnaire.
Mots elks :pieu, charge laterale, champ de vitesses, taux de fluage secondaire.

Can. Geotech. J. 26, 568-574 (1989)

Introduction
Because of frozen soil creep, laterally loaded piles in
permafrost behave in the long term as rigid piles and rotate
For personal use only.

at a uniform rate about a fixed point within the frozen soil

mass. Several authors (Ladanyi 1973; Nixon 1984; Nixon
and Neukirchner 1987; Rowley e t a / . 1975) have
demonstrated this effect both theoretically and experimentally
in laboratory and field tests. Rowley et a/. (1973, 1985)
arrived at this conclusion analytically and justified it by
means of results derived from field tests on laterally loaded
piles. Neukirchner and Nixon (1987) further clarified this
pile behavior in permafrost and also found that after an
initial period of pile flexure and load redistribution, a free-
headed pile subjected to lateral load (or moment) will
undergo uniform rotation.
For the design of laterally loaded piles, this paper uses
a streamline solution technique developed in ice mechanics
for predicting ice loads on structures (Vivatrat et a/. 1984),
in which the pile is modelled as a rigid disk moving laterally
within a nonlinear viscoelastic medium. The method is based
upon the following three concepts: a constitutive law for
frozen soil creep that relates stress to rates of strain, a
simulation of flow pattern in the vicinity of the pile, and
a general bound theorem.
A constitutive law for frozen soil creep
Widely used as a model for isotropic solids under multi-
axial state of stress is the von Mises relationship (Odqvist
1974):
where i;, i:, and Sij are the creep strain rates, equivalent
creep strain rate, equivalent stress, and components of the
deviatoric stress field, respectively. These tensors are defined
as
and
where aij is the Kronecker delta. Inherent in expression [I]
are the following four major flow rules: (1) The directions
of principal creep strains and principal stresses always
coincide. (2) The rates of shearing strains and shearing
stresses are proportional. (3) The change in mass density is
negligible, which implies incompressibility:
(4) The flow is primarily a function of the deviatoric stresses
and is, moreover, independent of the hydrostatic pressure:
which is the mean of the normal stresses. The von Mises
formulation, [I], assumes that the behavior of the material
is identical in tension and compression. However, recent
studies indicate that frozen soils under tension are much
weaker than those under compression (Eckardt 1982). When
subjected to tensile stresses, frozen soil creeps faster and fails
at smaller strains. Pertaining to [I], therefore, creep
parameters therein obtained by means of tensile tests differ
from those obtained by means of compression tests.
Whenever ['I] is used, tensile and compressive creep
parameters are assumed to coincide. Ignoring the tensile
creep parameters and using only compressive creep
parameters (as some investigators have already done), creep,
analysis underpredicts creep deformations and overpredicts
load capacities of frozen soil structures. The present paper
considers only compressive tractions acting on the front face
of the pile. This makes the analysis conservative and
consistent with the preceding conditions for [I].

Printed in Canada / ImprimC au Canada

 FORIERO AND LADANYI
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Frc. 1. Equipotential lines and streamlines for flow around a
pile section, resulting from superposition of a two-dimensional
doublet and uniform flow (after Streeter and Wylie 1979).
For applying [l] to frozen soil, the effective creep strain
rate i: is replaced by a value in terms of the equivalent
For personal use only.
stress a, obtained from the following secondary creep
power law (Ladanyi 1972):
where Eg and a. are an arbitrarily selected strain rate
(introduced for normalization purposes) and a creep
modulus (in units of stress obtained in unconfined compres-
sion tests), respectively, and n is a creep parameter. It must
be noted that [7] is a generalization of the uniaxial flow law
which relates the uniaxial strength a of the creeping soil to
the uniaxial creep strain rate iC.Thus, substituting E': from
[7] into [I] yields
This allows us to solve for the deviatoric stress field Sij in
terms of the strain rate fields i i , specifically,
which (via [7]) further reduces to
by noting that
Equation [l 11 defines the deviatoric stress field as a func-
tion of the creep strain rates, whereas [9] does the reverse.
This generalization is widely used in glaciology and ice
mechanics. The extreme values of n correspond to a rigid-
plastic material obeying a von Mises yield condition
(n - a),and to an incompressible linear viscous material
(n = 1). We assume, therefore, that creep is analogous to
plastic flow and that the von Mises type of "creep function"
is substituted for the yield function. This warrants, for the
subsequent sections of this paper, the use of any theorems
or postulates employed in plasticity.
Simulation of flow pattern in the vicinity of the pile
The determination of the response of the soil due to pile
displacement by means of the streamline solution technique
is achieved by idealizing the pile as an infinite rigid cylinder
whose movement is within an infinite nonlinear viscoelastic
medium. Equivalently, this is the formulation of the plane
strain problem for a laterally moving rigid disk in a nonlinear
viscoelastic medium. Investigations already completed
indicate that soil creep causes laterally loaded piles to behave
as rigid poles rotating at a constant rate about a fixed point
in a frozen soil mass (Ladanyi 1973; Nixon 1984; Nixon and
Neukirchner 1987; Rowley et al. 1975). Hence, a full-
displacement condition is postulated, wherefrom a
kinematically admissible velocity field is simulated.
The necessary flow pattern (Fig. I) is obtained by super-
position of a uniform flow with the flow derived from a
doublet, where both flows are two dimensional. This type
of flow induces a circular bluff-body of radius a, which
represents the pile cross section. The potential and stream
functions Q, and \k for this type of flow are expressed as
(Streeter and Wylie 1979)
and
[14] \k = U r
( 3
- - sin p
where U, a, and (r, p) stand for the uniform flow velocity,
pile radius, and polar coordinates respectively. Equation [14]
leads to the velocity components
and
At the pile-soil interface (r = a), one obtains V, = 0 and
V, = 2U sin p, which confirms the well-established fact
that at the stagnation points ( p = 0, n) the velocity is zero,
while the maximum value 2U of the velocity is obtained at
p = n/2 and 3n/2.
 570 CAN. GEOTECH. J. VOL. 26, 1989

The immediately preceding velocity components lead to alternate forms, one of which is derivable from the equations
the definition of the strain rate tensor with components [23], namely,

which, expressed in polar coordinates, yield

or alternatively,
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Now one considers a continuum of stable elastic material

and characterized by [26], where it is assumed that all
displacements are so small that geometric changes are insig-
nificant. One further assumes that stress and strain fields
a; and EU are given inside the continuum. Thus the stress
field and the body forces must be in a state of internal
equilibrium, as expressed by
It should be noted for this particular flow pattern that the
incompressibility condition [5] is satisfied, namely, i,, +
i,, = 0. The equivalent strain rate, determined from [2],
[18], [19], and [20], is expressed by
External equilibrium requires that the surface tractions
For personal use only.

T f be in equilibrium with the stresses, and consequently,

and will be utilized further in the general energy bound
theorem.
General energy bound theorem
The stresses oij and strains eij in a soil mass are related
to the strain and complementary-energy functions by means
of the formulas
where vj denotes the outward unit normal at the point
being considered. It should be emphasized at this moment
that the tensors 0;. and eij are independent of each other
and that boundary conditions remain unspecified. Owing
to the existing equilibrium states between the quantities T:
F; and a; and compatibility relationships between uiand
eijr the principle of virtual work entails

with where A and Vare the area and the volume of the continuum
respectively. Integrating inequalities [26] with respect to
volume retains the direction of the inequalities, which after
substitution into the right-hand side of equations [29] gives

The postulate for material stability formulated by Drucker

(1951) imposes the restrictions

'ij
[241 * (a..
lj
- a*.)
0 de.. -0
[I > (1 r i, j 5 3) If the body forces F; are negligible, then inequalities [30]
'ij simplify to

on the pair of strain states eij and E; with corresponding

stress states a;, and a t , where for each pair of indices, (i,~]
the a; is constant over the interval of integration from e;
to eij (1 r i, j 5 3). The foregoing inequalities have
 FORIERO AND LADANYI
In these inequalities, equalities hold when eij = 6; (1 Ii,
j s 3), that is, whenever the tensors a; and eij are the exact
solutions conformable to a particular boundary value
problem.
Application to creep problems
Inequalities [31] are suitably transformed in order to be
applicable to problems of stationary creep by means of a
uniaxial creep law (Martin 1964). Here we ignore the elastic
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strains and only consider the stationary creep strains. For
nonstationary creep solutions we need to consider the total
strain as being made up of both elastic and creep com-
ponents. Generalization to multiaxial creep leads to
(Calladine and Drucker 1962)
and
only if the constitutive creep law for multiaxial states of
stress has the form
For personal use only.
where +(aij/uo) is homogeneous of degree one, and 4"" is
a convex function of its argument. This implies
for quantity a, and tensor So defined in [2] and [3] respec-
tively. Therefore, inequalities [311 ] assume the forms
In consequence of the foregoing results, the problem of
obtaining a streamline solution for the laterally loaded pil:
in a nonlinear viscous medium can be dealt with. Let Ti
denote the true surface tractions acting on the pile-soil inter-
face and on a far-removed outside boundary surface, beyond
which the tractions are insignificant. Further, define u*;~,
i$ and u;(l 5 i, j 5 3) to be also the true solution of the
problem. Neglecting body forces and equating internal and
external energy dissipation rates leads to
which when substituted into the right-hand side of inequalities
[36] yields
57 1
Or
[39] ,u d 2 T (; "
- n + l ) dA
where tensor i ; stands for a fictitious strain rate field
related to uij via [I]. Next,*one specifies at all points of the
surface A either Ti*or u ; . The surface integrals in ine-
qualities [39] split into two parts, namely integrals on the
pile-soil interface A t and integrals on the far-removed out-
side boundary surface A2. Assuming A2 to be a cylinder of
radius r equal to infinity implies that the tractions are zero
on this surface and thus the surface integrals over surface
A2 vanish. Since the tractions Tion A t are rather difficult
to ascertain, one prescribes instead the velocities ur on Al
as
u
[40] u; = (1 r i 5 3)
and superimposes the uniform flow velocity ( - U ) with the
global virtual load P a t the stagnation point (a,O) of the pile.
This enables inequalities [39] to be reduced to
By decomposing stress field uij into its deviatoric and
hydrostatic components:
inequalities [41] reduce to
This is a slightly modified streamline solution, which was
originally developed by Vivatrat et al. (1984) and Ting and
Shyam Sunder (1985). For a more detailed explanation one
can refer to Huneault (1985).
The streamline solution for lateral resistance
Utilizing [2] and [ l l ] , one obtains from the preceding
inequalities [43],
which after substitution of the expression for ig from [21]
yields
 572 CAN. GEOTECH. J. VOL. 26, 1989

The volume integral over solid Vappearing in this inequality

is integrated with respect to variables (r, p, z) over the
domain ((r, p, z): a Ir, - a / 2 Ip 5 a/2, and
0 r z 5 t ) and thus transforms inequality [45] into
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The limits of integration of variable p ( - a/2 r p r

a/2) take into account the compressive tractions acting on
the front face of the pile. Concurrently, the tensile tractions
on the rear face of the pile are neglected, which introduces
a factor of safety to the lateral resistance. Performing the
integrations in inequality [46] leads to
where p = P/(2at) denotes the compressive soil reactions.
This inequality can be written in the form (proposed by
Nixon (1978) and Ladanyi (1983))
For personal use only.
FIG. 2. Laterally loaded rigid pile.
ible piles behave practically like rigid poles. Accordingly,
one can assume with certitude that a steady lateral penetra-
tion rate takes place, and consequently (as previously
asserted), the pile rotates about some fixed point below the
ground surface. Such behavior has been observed for short
free-headed rigid piles.
If the rigid pile retains its shape and rotates about a fixed
point below the ground, then the displacement rate along
the pile is expressible (from purely geometric considerations)
as a function of pile displacement rate at ground level and
the distance from the ground surface. Analytically formulated

this gives

In inequality [48], 1 stands for an influence factor, and

dependent only upon the creep parameter n, and given by

where Uo, a L , L, and x are the velocity of the pile at the

ground level (Fig. 2), depth of rotation, length of the pile,
and distance from the ground level, respectively. After solv-
ing inequality [48] and taking horizontal and moment
equilibrium, the following expressions (also derived by
Nixon 1984) are obtained:
while, as stated previously, io and a. are an arbitrarily
selected strain rate (introduced for normalization purposes)
and a creep modulus (in units of stress obtained in unconfined
compression tests) respectively. For taking into account the
effect of temperature on creep, one can replace, in [48], oo
by a,@,which can be expressed by (Ladanyi 1983) and

where uo, 0, O,, and w are the creep modulus extrapolated
to O°C, number of degrees below O°C, the reference
temperature (l°C), and the temperature exponent, respec-
tively. Typical values of the aforementioned creep
parameters for a polycrystalline ice or very ice-rich soil
would be, for 1°C < 0 < 2"C, n = 3, w = 0.67,
a0 = 38 kPa, i, = 0.01 year-'; (Morgenstern et al. 1980);
f o r e > 2"C,n = 3, w = 0.33,ao = 54.7kPa, i, = 0.01
'
year - (Ladanyi 1983).
Protracted behavior of laterally loaded piles
From prolonged observations (specifically 1000 h or
6 weeks) (Rowley et al. 1973, 1975), it was found that flex-
where H i s the height above the ground of the point of lateral
load application and
Using [53], the normalized load W/2aL is plotted in Fig. 3
against the normalized surface displacement rate Uo/a on
a double logarithmic scale. These (W/2aL)-value curves for
different temperature and H/L values are thereafter
compared with (W/2aL)-value curves obtained by Nixon
(1984) for n = 3, which he showed to be in general
agreement with experimental results. It is found that the
 FORIERO AND LADANYI

x.
- - present so
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0
2101 I I I I I
10'~ lo-2 lo-' 1 10 lo2
NORMALIZED DISPLACEMENT RATE, Uo/o year-')
F I G . 3. Normalized lateral pile load vs. displacement rate relationship for a free-headed pile and for three different ground
temperatures.
For personal use only.

-P R E S E N T SOLUTION
---- NIXON (1981i)

01 I I I I I
0 -2 -4 -6 -8 -10 -12
AVERAGE GROUND TEMPERATURE (OC)

FIG. 5. Pile design chart for n = 3, U,/a = 0.02 year - I , and

for different ground temperatures, showing the present solution
compared with that of Nixon (1984).

I
which gives an I value of 0.167 for n = 3, whereas the
present streamline solution ([49]) yields for n = 3 an I value
of 0.172. On the other hand, a corresponding influence
0.001
2 3 4 5 factor for a strip footing, developed from the same cavity
CREEP EXPONENT, n expansion theory, can also be used (Nixon 1978; Ladanyi
F I G . 4. Comparison of influence factors obtained from three 1983):
different theoretical concepts.

present streamline solution provides (W/2aL)-value curves

with the same first derivative as those obtained by Nixon
(1984), but they show somewhat higher normalized load
values.
It is noted that some different influence factors 1 have
been proposed previously. For example, Nixon (1984)
deduced one such factor from cavity expansion theory
developed by Ladanyi (1975), and valid for radial
displacements:
Figure 4 presents a comparison of all three I values for n
values ranging from 1 to 5 .
Finally, for a given lateral displacement rate Uo, a design
chart for representative creep parameters is drawn as shown
in Fig. 5. For reasons of comparison with Nixon (1984), the
ratio Uo/a is held fixed at 0.02 year-'. These curves
demonstrate again the validity of the present streamline solu-
tion. For example, a pile (in ice-rich silt at - 9OC) with H/L
value of 0.1 would have an allowable W/2uL value of
80 kPa according to the present streamline solution, whereas
the W/2aL value obtained by Nixon (1984) was 76 kPa.
 574 CAN. GEOTECH. J. VOL. 26, 1989
Conclusion
The herein-developed streamline solution agrees very well
with other recent solutions. Although this technique is very
flexible, it may only be applied provided a stationary creep
period has been attained and a stationary state of stress
exists. For the case of flexible free-headed piles, stationary
creep is attained only after uniform rotation about a point
in the soil mass has taken place. Thereafter, flexible free-
headed piles essentially behave rigidly. Hence, because of
rigid pile behavior, a steady lateral penetration rate for
Can. Geotech. J. Downloaded from www.nrcresearchpress.com by Depository Services Program on 05/28/13
flexible free-headed piles exi.sts after an elapsed time, which
is a necessary condition for the application of the presented
streamline solution technique.
Acknowledgements
The writers acknowledge and express their thanks to
P. Huneault of the National Research Council of Canada
for his constructive criticism during the completion of this
manuscript. This work was financially supported by research
grant A-1801 from the Natural Sciences and Engineering
Research Council of Canada.
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constant rate of energy dissipation in creep. Quarterly of Applied
Mathematics, 20(1): 79-84.
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-1975. Bearing capacity of strip footings in frozen soils.
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