ABSTRACT
Pile foundations are deemed to be vulnerable to large ground deformation caused by faulting, especially reverse faulting due to large discontinuous ground displacement under large earth pressure. As the relative positions of piles to the fault rupture is a key condition on pile damages, it is necessary to observe the behaviour of piles at different positions. In this paper, centrifuge model tests have been conducted to investigate the behaviour of single piles located to various points in sand subjected to reverse faulting. From the vertical and horizontal displacements, and rotation of pile caps measured by LDT scanning technique, and strains of piles, the internal forces and deflection of piles in the ground were measured. Furthermore vertical and horizontal displacements of ground surface and rupture propagation in sand were observed by the scanning and PIV techniques respectively. These displacement measurements of piles and ground could enable to observe the complicated soil-pile interaction. For example, when the fault rupture crosses the middle part of pile, it is likely be sheared-off near the cross point, while the pile behaves like a cantilever when the rupture crosses its upper part.
