ABSTRACT
Piles are frequently adopted as foundations for important structures, such as high buildings, nuclear power plants, bridges, offshore structures or machine foundations, etc. The study of dynamic response of these foundations, constitutes a very important element in their conception and in the security of structures they support. During the last decades, dynamic response of piles was the topic of several investigations. Although considerable efforts have been conducted to develop adequate analytical methods, conceptual and computational difficulties still remain essentially due to the three-dimensional nature and semi infinity of soil, as well as the embedding of the pile foundation.
