Vertical response of a thin-walled pipe pile embedded in viscoelastic soil to a transient point load with application to low-strain integrity testing

This paper presents an analytical method to compute the dynamic response of a thin-walled pipe pile due to a vertical transient point load acting on its head. Inspired from challenges faced during the interpretation of low-strain integrity tests on pipe piles, the proposed method moves beyond the widely used one-dimensional wave theory to consider the asymmetric nature of the problem, and stress wave propagation along both the vertical and circumferential directions. Coupling of pipe pile–viscoelastic soil vibration is considered via modeling the outer and inner soil as a series of infinitesimally thin layers in perfect contact with the pile, and their low-strain properties are directly introduced in the solution. The methodology is validated against numerical results, before discussing the mechanisms governing the dynamic response of the pipe pile–soil system to the impact load, with emphasis on the vertical velocity measured at a hypothetical receiver placed on the pile head. Additional results from a parametric analysis are used to provide insights on the accurate estimation of the arrival time of the receiving wave, and the optimal location of the receiver.