Increased Lateral Abutment Resistance from Gravel Backfills of Limited Width
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 136, Issue 1
Abstract
Lateral pile cap tests were performed on a pile cap with three backfills to evaluate the static and dynamic behavior. One backfill consisted of loose silty sand while the other two consisted of 0.91- and 1.82-m-wide dense gravel zones between the pile cap and the loose silty sand. The 0.91- and 1.82-m-wide dense gravel zones increased the lateral resistance by 75 to 150% and 150 to 225%, respectively, relative to the loose silty sand backfill. Despite being thin relative to the overall shear length, the 0.92- and 1.82-m-wide gravel zones increase lateral resistance to approximately 54 and 78%, respectively, of the resistance that would be provided by a backfill entirely composed of dense gravel. The dynamic stiffness for the pile cap with the gravel zones decreased about 10% after 15 cycles of loading, while the damping ratio remained relatively constant with cycling. Dynamic stiffness increased by about 10 to 40% at higher deflections, while the damping ratio decreased from an initial value of about 0.30 to around 0.26 at higher deflections.
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Acknowledgments
This research investigation was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. NSFCMS-0421312, the George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) which operates under NSF Grant No. UNSPECIFIEDCMS-0402490, and the Departments of Transportation from the states of California, New York, Montana, Oregon, and Utah through an FHWA pooled-fund arrangement. This support is greatly appreciated. The Utah Dept. of Transportation served as the lead agency for the pooled-fund study with Daniel Hsiao as the Project Manager. The conclusions and recommendations expressed in this paper are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsors.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 136 • Issue 1 • January 2010
Pages: 230 - 238
Copyright
© 2010 ASCE.
History
Received: Oct 17, 2007
Accepted: Jul 9, 2009
Published online: Jul 17, 2009
Published in print: Jan 2010
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