Non-Linear Response of Laterally Loaded Rigid Piles in Sand

Dr Hongyu Qin

This talk presents nonlinear response of laterally loaded rigid piles in sand. Firstly, the failure mode of laterally loaded piles and the determination of ultimate lateral capacity of short rigid piles are reviewed. Comparison of the measured pile capacity from field tests and predicted using various methods are made. Secondly, elastic solution and elastic-plastic solutions for laterally loaded rigid piles are presented, with the focus on closed-form analytical solutions. The characteristics of the solutions are summarised. Then, they were used to analyse the response of laterally loaded rigid piles in sands obtained from field test, centrifuge test, and 1g laboratory model tests. Typical case studies, such as the PISA project and driven pile tests in heavily over-consolidated dense sand are presented. The determination of the ultimate lateral resistance is discussed. Particularly, CPT-based ultimate lateral pile resistance in sand is evaluated. Finally, these results are applied in the blind prediction of piles under monotonic lateral loading.

About the speaker

Dr Hongyu Qin Lecturer in Civil Engineering, College of Science and Engineering

Dr. Hongyu Qin earned his Bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering from Zhengzhou University, Master in Geotechnical Engineering at Hohai University in China and PhD in Geotechnical Engineering at Griffith University. He joined Flinders University as a Lecturer in Civil Engineering in 2015. He leads the teaching and research in Geotechnical Engineering and serves as the Discipline Lead of Civil Engineering for CSE Engineering Honours Masters Thesis and Project. His research focuses primarily on three areas: (1) behaviour and mechanical properties of geomaterials; (2) pile foundations for renewable energy; and (3) Measurement While Drilling (MWD). He has published more than 30 papers in premier international journals in geotechnical engineering, including Geotechnique, Canadian Geotechnical Journal, Acta Geotechnica, Computers and Geotechnics. He collaborates and interacts closely with industry and currently leads two Flinders/Industry co-funded Enterprise projects on investigative drilling and solar farm pile foundations in reactive soils. His research outcomes have been used in the design of foundation systems. The algorithms and solutions that he developed have been licensed to industry partners in the development of an Engineering Calculator APP, which has sped up the calculation tasks and provided more accurate estimation in the performance-based design framework.

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