Scour effects on the response of laterally loaded piles considering stress history of sand

Scour is the removal of soils around pile foundations of bridges or offshore platforms, resulting in reduced capacity of the foundations in either lateral or vertical direction. A common way to analyze the scour-affected pile foundations is to remove the scoured soil layers while keeping the properties of the remaining soil unchanged. However, this approach ignores the fact that the remaining soil experiences different stress histories before and after scour, which can be expected to change the properties of the remaining soil. As a result, the resistance of the remaining soil provided to the pile foundation may be different. The present study focused on the response of laterally loaded pile foundations in sand under scour considering the stress history of the remaining sand. Relative density and coefficient of lateral earth pressure of the sand were evaluated when it changed from a normally consolidated (NC) soil to an over-consolidated (OC) soil due to scour. The relative density was then used to estimate other properties of sand, e.g., unit weight, friction angle, and modulus of subgrade reaction of the sand based on their correlation. The lateral load–deflection (p–y) curve for a pile in sand was modified and input into the computer software, LPILE Plus V 5.0, to account for the effect of the stress history induced by scour. A field test was referenced as an example to compare the calculated results from the modified p–y curves with those from the initially developed p–y curves for the tested sand. The results showed that the change in the over-consolidation ratio (OCR) resulted in the most significant effect on the lateral soil resistance among all the effects due to the changes in the properties of the remaining sand. The sand changing from an NC to OC state increased the lateral soil resistance to the pile foundation. Ignoring the stress history would result in a conservative design of laterally loaded piles under scour.