Effect of soil spatial variability on the response of laterally loaded pile in undrained clay

A comprehensive study is performed on the allowable capacity of laterally loaded pile embedded in undrained clay having spatial variation of strength properties. Undrained shear strength is considered as a random variable and the analysis is conducted using random field theory. The soil medium is modeled as two-dimensional non-Gaussian homogeneous random field using Cholesky decomposition technique. Monte Carlo simulation approach is combined with finite difference analysis. Statistics of lateral load capacity and maximum bending moment developed in the pile for a specified allowable lateral displacement as influenced by variance and spatial correlation length of soil’s undrained shear strength are investigated. The observations made from this study help to explain the requirement of allowable lateral capacity calculations in probabilistic framework.