ABSTRACT
In this study, an attempt has been made to investigate seismic behaviour of friction pile foundations in two different soft clay profiles under the action of dynamic loading. A single pile and a 1 × 3 pile group (aluminium tubular model piles) were embedded into two soft clay profiles with different strengths and tested aboard centrifuge facility at the University of Cambridge. This paper discusses the preliminary results obtained from these two centrifuge experiments. A few important findings of this study are: (i) the pile foundation response changes significantly with a relatively small change in undrained shear strength of the clay, (ii) larger dynamic amplification of input motion was observed in the pile foundations during small intensity sinusoidal signals (SS) rather than during the strong intensity SS and (iii) the pile foundation continues to respond for the seismic motion though the clay fails in shear during the strong intensity SS.
