Effects of scour on the lateral response of piles in sand: centrifuge tests and numerical investigation

Abstract

The results presented in this paper are based on a set of centrifuge model tests (50 g) exploring the lateral behavior of single piles in dense Fujian standard sand subjected to different levels of scouring. The hypoplastic model used to capture the stress–strain response of Fujian sand was calibrated and validated via experimental data, which was subsequently integrated into the ABAQUS finite element software package using the UMAT subroutine facility. A comprehensive numerical investigation was conducted to explore the effect of key pile/soil parameters on the pile load–displacement relationship, bending moment distribution, soil resistance distribution, and resulting p-y curves for different scour hole geometries and sand relative densities. The findings demonstrate that scour changed the pile–soil interaction mode and significantly reduced the lateral bearing capacity of the pile. The effect of scour depth on the lateral bearing capacity of the piles is also shown to be more significant than that of other geometries such as the scour slope angle and the scour hole base width. A novel p-y model appropriate for laterally loaded piles vulnerable to scour conditions is developed by the numerical output from the parametric analysis.