Performance and Design of Laterally Loaded Piles in Frozen Ground
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 143, Issue 5
Abstract
Frozen soils, including both those seasonally frozen and perennially frozen, exists extensively in Alaska and other cold regions. During past earthquakes, widespread damage was observed in deep foundations in the ground, and frozen ground appears to be the direct cause of at least some of that damage. The aim of this paper is to investigate the effects of seasonally frozen soil on deep foundations during lateral loads induced by earthquakes, ice, wind, vehicular impacting, and other loads with a short duration, and to recommend simplified tools for design practices. Two identical reinforced concrete-filled steel pipe piles were tested to large deformations at unfrozen and frozen soil conditions to demonstrate the effects of seasonally frozen soil on the lateral behavior of steel pipe piles. The pile tested at unfrozen condition behaved as a rigid pile, and the other at deep seasonally frozen condition formed a very shallow plastic hinge. Pile performance data in deep seasonally frozen silts were used to evaluate the fixity depth approach parameters, which include depth-to-maximum-moment, depth-to-fixity, and analytical plastic hinge length. In addition, the test data were used to calibrate a finite element (FE) model for assessing the effects of varying seasonally frozen soil depths on the pile lateral behavior and fixity depth approach parameters. These fixity depth approach parameters for various frozen soil depths can be used to account for the effects of seasonally frozen soil on pile lateral behavior in design practices.
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Acknowledgments
This research was performed by the Department of Civil Engineering, University of Alaska, Anchorage, and the Department of Civil Engineering, University of Alaska, Fairbanks. This project was jointly funded by the Alaska University Transportation Center and the State of Alaska Department of Transportation & Public Facilities under AUTC Project #107014. The authors are thankful to Dr. Jinchi Lu, Research Scientist from the University of California, San Diego, who provided technical guidance on OpenSees modeling.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 143 • Issue 5 • May 2017
Copyright
©2016 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Nov 10, 2015
Accepted: Sep 7, 2016
Published online: Nov 28, 2016
Discussion open until: Apr 28, 2017
Published in print: May 1, 2017
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