Novel Plasticity Models for Soil-Pile-Interaction

The proposed research seeks to develop a framework to evaluate and mitigate infrastructure hazards, related to the foundations of structures to increase the resilience of the built environment to risks. For this purpose novel continuum Soil-Structure-Interaction (SSI) models and pertinent open source codes will be developed to accurately predict the response of mono-piles under lateral cyclic loading and realistically assess their long-term bearing capacity taking into account cyclic plasticity, ratchetting and fatigue effects. The rationale behind this endeavor lies in applying the understanding of the behavior of the foundation soil at the material level via using intrinsic soil material parameters from cyclic triaxial tests to shed light into the complex SSI mechanisms via thermodynamically consistent modeling. On top of that, “new generation” non-linear spring elements, at various depths along the pile length, will be formulated by means of this method to facilitate and further improve simple design tools in geotechnical engineering practice.

Keywords:soil-pile interaction, plasticity model, lateral cyclic loading, single piles

Disciplines:Soil mechanics, Continuum mechanics