Pile response to liquefaction-induced lateral spreading: a shake-table investigation

•Soil behavior and pile response prior to and during lateral spreading are presented.•A lateral flow pressure distribution scenario due to lateral spreading is further calibrated.•A BNWF model implemented in OpenSees has been developed.•Influences of several key factors on elastic pile behavior are examined.

Case histories have shown that the liquefaction-induced lateral spreading is one of the main causes of damage to pile foundations subjected to seismic loading. This study will investigate the effect of lateral spreading on a single pile behind a quay wall. A shake-table experiment on a single pile embedded in a fully saturated sand stratum is conducted. The ground surface and pile head displacement are in close agreement prior to liquefaction. Upon liquefaction, soil acceleration is clearly attenuated. Simple liquefied lateral soil pressure analysis approaches (uniform and triangular) are calibrated using the experimental results. Subsequently, a Beam on Nonlinear Winkler Foundation (BNWF) model is proposed, and the response is compared to the experimental results. It is found that the proposed BNWF model better predicts the observed pile response compared to the simple soil pressure approaches. A parametric study through the BNWF model is performed to explore the effect of several salient factors on the pile behavior. On this basis, it is shown that a larger pile bending stiffness decreases the lateral spreading-induced deformation, and a larger pile diameter for the same stiffness results in a higher displacement and bending moment.