Probabilistic pseudostatic analysis of pile in laterally spreading ground: Two layer soil profile

Coupling the finite element model of pile under lateral spread with the Monte Carlo Simulation is frequently prohibited by excessive lengthily computations. In the present paper, a simplified pseudostatic method is integrated with an improved response surface scheme to evaluate the reliability of pile subjected to lateral spread. The pseudostatic model takes both geometric and soil nonlinearities into account, while, the response surface formulation takes; load, geometry, material and model uncertainties into consideration. First; the improved response surface scheme is suggested and validated with the help of a simple example. Then, the pseudostatic model of a full size pile under lateral spread is integrated with the improved response surface scheme in order to assess the pile reliability. In the considered example, for both operational and structural possible modes of failure, it has been found that the most influential random variables are lateral displacement, and pile radius, respectively.