Full-Scale Lateral Pile Load Test in Rock Fill

The recently approved seismic code for the Port of Los Angeles (POLA) requires performance evaluation for two levels of earthquakes: the Operating Level Earthquake (OLE) which has 50% probability of exceedance in 50 years and the Contingency Level Earthquake (CLE) having 10% probability of exceedance in 50 years. For the OLE event, structures should remain operational with insignificant structural damage, while for the CLE event structures should undergo controlled inelastic structural behavior and limited permanent deformations which can be repaired within an acceptable period of time. For the case of pile-supported wharves, the expected level of performance is based on the estimation of the displacement capacity of the structure. Therefore, soil-pile-interaction has to be evaluated with a higher degree of accuracy. One of the most important factors is to properly define key soil parameters, such as soil stiffness, commonly characterized by p-y curves. Unfortunately, little information is available in the literature on the behavior of laterally loaded piles embedded in the large-diameter quarry-run material typically used in port dikes. In light of this, a series of full-scale load tests on piles in quarry-run material were carried out at University of California, San Diego's Englekirk Center from April through August, 2007, in order to obtain better understandings of the behavior of the wharf-foundation-dike system during lateral loading. This paper presents test setup, instrumentation, and the results of a full-scale test for a single pile.