Pile Cap-Pile Group-Soil Interaction

A numerical procedure based on the finite element method is proposed for the analysis of structural systems composed of beam-column (pile), plate (cap) and nonlinear springs (soil). It integrates one-and two-dimensional idealizations for these components in order to obtain an approximation to the three-dimensional problem. It allows for soil-structure interaction effects as influenced by nonlinear soil behavior, loss of contact and tensile stress conditions. The predictions from the procedure show satisfactory comparison with results from other numerical procedures and laboratory observations. A parametric study is conducted to indentify the influence of relative stiffnesses on distribution of loads and displacements in the cap-pile-soil system. The procedure can permit computation of the histories of stresses, moments and displacements in the entire system.