THREE DIMENSIONAL NONLINEAR ANALYSIS OF VERTICAL SINGLE PILE SUBJECTED TO COMBINED LOADING

Vertical piles are often subjected to both vertical and lateral loads. The current design practices assume that the effect of these two loads is independent of each other and hence the pile design is carried out separately for vertical and lateral loads. The conventional methods for analysis of piles based on sub-grade reaction methods also do not account for the interaction between the vertical and lateral loads. The influence of vertical loads on the lateral response of piles installed in sandy soils is brought out in this paper through three dimensional finite element analyses. In the numerical model, the pile was treated as a linear elastic material and the soil was idealized using the Mohr-Coulomb constitutive model. The results from the analysis of single pile under lateral loads and combined vertical and lateral loads are presented in this paper. The influence of related parameters, such as soil relative density, pile slenderness ratio, pile diameter, and sequence of load application have also been studied in the paper.