ANALYSIS OF PILE GROUPS SUBJECTED TO VERTICAL AND LATERAL LOADING

Abstract

Pile groups are usually subjected to vertical and lateral load;. The avilabl.e methods of analysis of such pile groups ignore a number of important actual field situations such as : (i) layered soil system (ii) soil stiffness erratically varying with depth (iii) pile stiffness varying with depth as in the case of taper piles (iv) three-dimensional nature of the pile group etc. In the present study, an attempt has been made to develop an analysis accounting for all the above factors and make the solution applicable in most of the actual field situations. A--deta_i..l_ed review of the various methods of analysis of nile groups is presented in Chapter two. A two-dimensional analysis which accounts for the various factors listed above is presented in Chapter three. In certain situations, a two-dimensional analysis may not be appropriate. In order to handle such a situation, a three-dimensional analysis is presented in Chapter four. The analyses developed are programmed and a number of numerical problems have been solved using these programs and the results presented in Chapter five to bring out (i) the general nature of the solution procedure which accounts for the various actual field situations and (ii) the limitation of the existing methods of analysis. The programs developed have been made easy to use by providing a user friendly scheme for inputting of data.