IMPACT: Cloud-based software for stress-wave and drivability analysis of driven piles

Mark Randolph

Dynamic analysis software, IMPACT, was originally developed some 30 years ago for drivability assessment and stress-wave matching of driven piles. Over the last three years it has been transformed from an Excel-based Fortran DLL to a web-based application. There are two main advantages of this: the first is in the ease of updating the software without needing to circulate all users; the second (and much greater) is with respect to the speed of analysis since multiple analyses may be run concurrently using the parallel computational architecture of the cloud. Dynamic pile-soil interaction is implemented using a continuum approach, although the traditional Smith models are retained as an option, with the internal soil plug treated independently from the external soil. Pile-soil interaction parameters may be derived from CPT data, either from in-built published recommendations or from user-input algebraic expressions for a range of different soil behaviour types. For drivability analysis, friction degradation is allowed for automatically using in-built or user-supplied relationships. The talk will provide an overview of 1D dynamic analysis of piles and how drivability analyses and stress-wave fitting of dynamic test data are undertaken efficiently on the web-app. Example applications are presented.

About the speaker

Mark Randolph Emeritus Professor and Honorary Fellow, Centre for Offshore Foundation Systems, University of Western Australia

Mark Randolph Emeritus Professor and Honorary Fellow in the Centre for Offshore Foundation Systems at the University of Western Australia. His research interests range broadly across foundation engineering, with particular focus on pile foundations, and offshore geotechnics. He has co-authored two books, including “Piling Engineering” and the more recent “Offshore Geotechnical Engineering”, and over 300 journal articles. He interacts closely with industry, both in research and through his role as Technical Advisor within Fugro. He is a Fellow of several learned academies, including the Royal Society in the UK, and in 2021 he was appointed Officer of the Order of Australia.

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