p-y Curves for Piles in Uniform Sand and Normally Consolidated Clay

Abstract

Abstract The design of laterally loaded piles has commonly been done using the p-y method. The results of a p-y analysis are highly dependent on the p-y curves used in the analysis. Since the p-y curves routinely used in p-y analyses have been traditionally derived empirically from data obtained from a limited number of lateral pile load tests and in situ test data, the domain of applicability of the p-y method would necessarily be limited. An alternative path for p-y curve development is to obtain them from realistic numerical analyses, an approach explored in this paper. The paper presents the results of a series of three-dimensional (3D) finite element (FE) analyses of single piles in uniform soil profiles of sand and clay using advanced two-surface-plasticity constitutive models. The analyses were performed for different values of pile diameter, pile length, lateral load eccentricity, and sand relative density. We extracted p-y curves from the simulation results, and studied the factors that would be expected to have an impact on the p-y curves: relative density, soil type, pile diameter, load eccentricity, and the depth to the water table. Based on these analyses, we propose a new set of p-y curve equations that can be used for sand or clay in the design of laterally loaded piles.