Numerical Methods in Geotechnical Engineering – Schweiger (ed.

)
© 2006 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 0-415-40822-9

Modelling piles under multi-directional loading conditions

N.H. Levy
Centre for Offshore Foundation Systems, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia

I. Einav
School of Civil Engineering, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia

ABSTRACT: The behaviour of pile foundations subjected to single directional lateral and axial loading has
been substantially investigated in the past. However, the response of a pile subjected to a change in lateral load-
ing direction or inclined loading (i.e. combined axial and lateral loading) has not been treated adequately. There
is an increasing demand for a design method that considers the interaction between the responses of the pile-
soil system when loads are applied in more than one direction, particularly for pile foundations that are installed
offshore, which incur substantial lateral and torsional loads. This paper presents a multi-directional Winkler
system that is modeled using an energy based variational (EBV) method, considering interaction at each depth
along the pile using a series of local yield surfaces.

1 INTRODUCTION benefit from the more realistic damping capabilities

The response of piles subjected to lateral or axial
loading has been investigated in detail and established
methods exist for determining this response (Fleming
et al. 1992, API 1993). These methods generally
model the soil as non-linear elastic, which limits their
use to monotonic loading. In recent years the soil has
been represented as an elasto-plastic medium with a
yield or ultimate soil pressure defined as a function of
depth (Murff 1975, Guo & Randolph 1997, Guo &
Lee 2001, Hsiung 2003, Einav 2005). The concept of
using a continuous field of yield surfaces to create a
smooth non-linear curve was introduced by Einav
(2005) for both axial and lateral loading.
The current paper presents an energy based vari-
ational (EBV) approach to solve the pile-soil system
using the method presented by Einav (2005) for dissi-
pative soil. A general model is presented for multi-
directional loading based on the yield surface model
presented by Levy et al. (2005). This model allows
inclined loading to be modeled considering the inter-
action between the lateral and axial pile deformations.
This type of model is also useful for the loading of
piles in unaligned lateral directions, where the resid-
ual displacements from loading in previous lateral
directions (“recent load history”) are taken into
account for subsequent loading (Levy et al. 2006).
In this paper we extend our pile model of recent
load history to a model with infinite yield surfaces at
each point along the length of the pile. In this way we
of multi-surface plasticity when compared to single
surface plasticity. It is shown that the new model pre-
dicts a stronger effect of recent load history when
smaller pile displacements are applied, but equivalent
results in large displacements.
2 THE MODEL
The EBV approach allows all information regarding
the geometry and constitutive assumptions of the pile-
soil interaction problem to be encapsulated within two
potential functionals (which are defined explicitly). For
rate independent isothermal deformations the energy
and dissipation potentials must satisfy the following
equation:
(1)
where ␦W is the change in virtual work, ␦⌿ is the
change in internal energy and ⌽ is the change in
mechanical dissipation (which is strictly non-negative).
The change is virtual work is defined as:
(2)
where r is the unbalanced force vector and ␦u is the
change in displacement vector, each having a length n

563
defined by the number of perpendicular directions
being considered (i.e. including x, y and/or z where x
and y are perpendicular lateral directions and z
represents the axial direction). The symbol L repre-
sents the length of the pile and z is the depth below
the pile head. The unbalanced force vector is generally
defined as zero along the length of the pile and as the
imposed external forces at the pile head. If required a
non-zero force could be applied along the pile length
to represent lateral soil movement.
The internal energy is defined as the sum of the
contributions from the pile and soil as follows:
(3)
where the subscripts P and S refer to the pile and soil
respectively.
The pile is assumed to deform in an elastic man-
ner according to Euler-Bernoulli beam theory and is
defined for a circular pile as (Reddy 2002, Einav 2005):
(4)
where EP is the Young’s modulus of the pile (assumed
constant along the pile for simplicity), IP is the moment
of inertia of the pile about the axis of bending (for a
circular pile Ixx ⫽ Iyy ⫽ IP), AP is the cross-sectional
area of the pile. The x, y and z terms are included
when required according to the loading conditions
and the functions ux, uy and uz represent the x, y and z
components of the total displacement vector u, which
has a length n.
2.1 Single yield surface soil model
The soil is modeled at each depth along the pile using
independent Winkler springs, one each in the perpen-
dicular directions, and a multi-dimensional yield
surface.
In this model the soil resistance force (fi) in each
direction i is the same as the spring force (␹i), which
is defined by a linear force-displacement relationship
with the elastic displacement and has spring stiffness
Esi. The spring stiffness can also be referred to as the
modulus of subgrade reaction and can be defined as a
function of the pile and soil properties. The soil resist-
ance force fi can be defined by:
(5)
where ␣i is the plastic displacement in the i direction
and the elastic displacement is defined as the total
displacement minus the plastic displacement.
564
The components of the unbalanced force can now
be defined as (for derivation see Einav 2005):
(6)
The soil energy density function ␺Si in each direction
i is defined as:
(7)
The soil energy potential ⌿S is then defined as:
(8)
The change in energy potential can be defined as:
(9)
The yielding behaviour of a soil subjected to lateral
loading can be defined using the Randolph-Houlsby
mechanism (Randolph & Houlsby 1984, Einav &
Randolph 2005). As the limiting reaction will be the
same in all lateral directions, a circular yield surface
is suitable to define this behaviour.
It is less obvious how the soil will behave when
subjected to combined lateral and axial loading. Levy
et al. (2005) presented an elliptical yield surface for
this behaviour but suggested that further research was
required to refine this shape.
The general form of the dissipation function, assum-
ing an elliptical relationship between the lateral and
axial directions, will be as follows:
(10)
where fui is the ultimate soil resistance force in the
i direction.
A set of yield functions can be obtained from the
dissipation potential using a set of degenerate Legendre
transformations. The local elastic behaviour is bounded
by a three dimensional ellipsoidal yield function (y)
defined by the following:
(11)
 Yield surface The total soil resistance force at depth z in the i direc-
tion is defined as the integral of all the spring forces
fu(z) fy(z) over the internal variable ␩:
fx(z)

L
z

(13)

Figure 1. Schematic representation of a two dimensional

Therefore the soil free energy function can be
single yield surface interaction model. defined as:

(14)
An example of this type of model is presented in
Figure 1 for two dimensional lateral loading, where
fu ⫽ fux ⫽ fuy. This can be extended to three dimen-
sions and an ellipsoidal yield surface, as expressed in The dissipation function can be defined as:
Equation 11.

2.2 Soil model 2 – continuous yield surfaces (15)

An elasto-plastic non-linear force versus displace-
ment relationship can be represented using the EBV
approach. Rather than having a single spring-slider
element in a given direction Einav (2005) presented a
continuous Masing-Iwan model. This model consists
of a group of spring-slider elements arranged in series
with each element having a different spring stiffness
and slider threshold depending on a local internal vari-
able ␩ that signifies the amount of yielding at each
point along the length of the pile. Initially, before the
occurrence of any yielding, ␩ is 0, but as yielding
in a soil layer progresses, ␩ tends to 1. In this one-
directional model, each value of ␩ marked a single
spring and a single one-directional slider.
In this paper we extend this model to two dimen-
sions by considering an additional spring per internal
coordinate ␩ and representing the yielding by a two-
dimensional yield surface rather than the slider.
Distribution functions are defined for the spring
stiffness (H) and yield threshold (k) in each direction i
and these must satisfy the following condition:
The spring forces are defined for each internal vari-
able ␩ in a direction i as:
(12)
The yield surfaces are defined as:
(16)
3 EXAMPLES
The multi-dimensional EBV model provides a versatile
approach to solving the cases of both simultaneous
and staged loading in different directions. An example
of each of these cases will be presented here.
3.1 Simultaneous lateral and axial loading
The case of simultaneous lateral and axial loading was
presented by Levy et al. (2005) using the differential
equations defined for each loading in each direction
and a two-dimensional elliptical yield surface to couple
the soil forces. These differential equations can be
derived from the energy potentials (Einav 2005) and
therefore this situation can be defined using the single
yield surface model. Sensitivity analyses were com-
pleted on the influence of pile flexibility and the inclin-
ation of the imposed displacement. For the case of
a 20 m length, 2 m diameter solid circular steel pile
embedded in normally consolidated clay the applied

565
 9000
θ = 90°
8000
θ = 60°
axial pile head force (kN)
7000
6000
5000
θ = 45° θ = 30°
4000
3000
2000
1000
0 0
0 0.01 0.02
axial pile head displacment (m)
Figure 2. Axial pile head force versus displacement for
inclined loading (from Levy et al. (2005)).
axial force versus the pile head displacement is shown
in Figure 2 for various displacement inclinations from
the horizontal (␪).
The results from this study suggest that the inclin-
ation of the applied load will influence the axial pile
behaviour. A greater lateral load will cause the pile to
displace further in the vertical direction. A sensitivity
analysis on the pile flexibility shows that a more flex-
ible pile will be influenced more in the axial direction
by an inclined load.
This influence was shown to be less prominent for
the lateral pile behaviour, with an applied axial load
having minimal effect.
This study was presented as a starting point for this
type of yield surface interaction model. The results show
trends that agree with previous studies on inclined load-
ing (Shahrour & Meimon 1991, Anagnostopoulos &
Georgiadis 1993). Currently work is being undertaken
to refine the yield surface shape to provide a more real-
istic representation of the interaction mechanism.
3.2 Staged two dimensional lateral loading
A pile subjected to monotonic lateral loading will
behave the same in any direction using the EBV
model. This model can be applied when a pile is
loaded in a lateral direction and then in a different
direction on the horizontal plane. Levy et al. (2006)
coined the term “recent load history” to describe the
soil-pile response in these conditions. As this term
suggests loading history influences the behaviour of a
pile during subsequent loading.
Levy et al. (2006) presented a numerical example
of a pile loaded in a given direction, unloaded to zero
and then loaded in a new direction. The study explores
the influence of the pile flexibility, magnitude of the
12
L = 5m
10 L = 10m
L = 15m
% increase in u0
L = 20m
8
6
4
2
0.03
0 20 40 60 80 100
% of Pult
Figure 3. Percentage increase in resultant displacement rela-
tive to monotonic loading conditions (␪ ⫽ 90°) (from Levy
et al. 2006).
applied load and the angle between loading stages on
the pile behaviour. An example of a steel pile with a
diameter of 2 m and 20 mm wall thickness embed-
ded in normally consolidated clay is presented below.
Figure 3 shows the influence of the magnitude of
loading during initial loading (as a percentage of the
pile capacity, Pult) on the resultant pile head displace-
ment (u0), as a percentage increase from the displace-
ment achieved for monotonic lateral loading. The
change in loading direction (␪) for this case was 90°
and four different pile lengths were considered.
This plot suggests that the more a pile is loaded
initially the greater the increase in the final pile head
displacement. It also shows that a longer, (i.e. more
flexible) pile will be influenced more by previous
loading. This is because more stored energy is frozen
along the length of the pile as a result of the yielding
such that after unloading a more significant plastic
displacement remains further from the zero position.
An even more astonishing factor is presented when
examining the resultant load-displacement response.
A typical load-unload-reload curve is shown in
Figure 4 where Stage I is initially loading to a given
force (P/Pult ⫽ 0.75) in the x direction, Stage II is
unloading to zero force and Stage III is loading at 90°
(in the y direction) to the same P/Pult as Stage I. The
shape of the curve of Stage III is markedly different
than that of Stage I, ending with additional displace-
ment as summarised in Figure 3.
3.3 Extension to continuous yield
surface model
In this section we extend the above model to the case
of continuous yield surfaces. This allows a non-linear
566
 0.8 has reached the yield value over a section of the pile
some plastic deformation will remain after unloading.
Initial Loading Curve
0.7
(Stage I) In contrast, for the case where P/Pult ⫽ 0.125 the sin-
0.6 gle yield surface model does not reach yield at any
point along the pile and therefore the pile will return
0.5 to its original position after unloading. Due to the
F/Pult

gradual yielding the multiple yield surface model

0.4 Stage II does exhibit a plastic displacement. Since it is well
0.3 established that the fundamental constitutive stress-
strain behaviour of clays presents small strain non-
0.2 Stage III linearity the multiple yield surface model is more
representative, accounting for the additional damping
0.1
in the soil. It is shown that the new model predicts a
0 stronger effect of recent load history when smaller
0 0.02 0.04 0.06 0.08 0.1 0.12 pile displacements are applied, but similar results in
u0/D larger displacements.

Figure 4. F/Pult versus u0/D at the pile head for P/Pult ⫽ 0.75.
4 CONCLUSIONS

1.2 A model is presented in the paper that enables an

Multiple Surface analysis of the behaviour of a pile loaded in multiple
directions. This model allows different soil conditions
1 Single Surface
to be considered as well as many loading combin-
ations. This type of interaction model has enormous
0.8 potential to consider the interaction between loading
P/Pult = 0.75 directions and design piles more efficiently.
uy0/umono

0.6
0.4
P/Pult = 0.125
0.2
0 stress design, 20th edition. API-RP-2A.
-0.2 0 0.2 0.4
ux0/umono
Figure 5. Evolution of pile head displacement determined
using a single and multiple yield surface models.
force displacement profile to be considered, which will
represent the soil in a way that more closely resembles
the curves defined from physical testing results
(API 1993).
The continuous yield surface model allows the
behaviour of the soil during unloading of a pile to be
better represented. The analysis discussed in the pre-
vious section for staged lateral loading was repeated
using the continuous yield surface model. A compari-
son between the pile head location as suggested by
the two alternative models is shown in Figure 5.
At large loads the behaviour of the pile does not
vary significantly between the two models. As the soil
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