ABSTRACT
Pile foundations often behave under lateral forces. The complexity of soil-pile interaction is due to many geotechnical and geometrical factors as well as to the 3D nature of the phenomenon. This paper is aimed to present the results of a simplified 3D modelling of soil/pile system by linear solid finite elements. After validation of the model, a parametric study was carried out. The lateral subgrade reaction modulus was derived from a process of fitting and differentiation of shear forces curves along the pile, and a simplified formulation in homogeneous soil as well as in Gibson’s soil was proposed. At last, an assessment of this formulation was carried out by predicting the deflections of experimental piles tested at full scale.
