Ultimate lateral load of a pile in soft clay under cyclic loading

Abstract

In this paper, the ultimate lateral resistance of a long, flexible, unrestrained vertical pile in soft clay is computed under cyclic loading condition using p-y curves. A new method for the construction of p-y curves is proposed. The comparison of calculated results of the proposed method with the field test results reported by Matlock (1970) shows a good agreement. An iterative analysis is employed with secant modulus approach using a matrix method known as moment area method developed by Sawant and Dewaikar (1994). The load-ground line displacement relationship is obtained for different load eccentricities, number of cycles and pile diameters using the proposed p-y curves. Ultimate lateral load is computed from the log-log plot of ground line displacement and applied load and the effect of number of load cycles on the ultimate lateral load resistance is investigated for various pile diameters and load eccentricities.