ABSTRACT

The lateral response of pile foundations is critically important in the design of structures that may be subjected to lateral loads. It is worth noting that, lateral loads are in the order of 10%–15% of the vertical loads in the case of onshore structures, while this value may exceed 30% in case of offshore structures (Rao et al. 1998). The response of a laterally loaded pile is a complicated soil-structure interaction problem, because the pile deflection depends on the soil reaction and the soil reaction in turn depends on the pile deflection. Fairly reliable methods have been developed for predicting the lateral response of single piles, since the pioneer works of Matlock and Reese (1961), and Broms (1964). Frechette et al. (2002) reviewed the design methods for laterally loaded groups of drilled shafts and compared between methods employing a group reduction factor and a p-multiplier. Kumar and Lalvani (2004) analyzed the nonlinear load-deflection behavior of laterally loaded piles using p-y relationships. Full scale and centrifuge model tests on pile groups have been conducted by Brown et al. (1988), McVay et al. (1998), and Rollins et al. (2005).