ABSTRACT
This paper presents a limit equilibrium solution for the lateral pile capacity problem in cohesive soil. The solution is based on an implementation of the slice method, the mobilized strength concept, and optimization of slip surface geometries. This study shows an improvement in the inner slice forces inclination, which is inspired from previous upper-bound solution. The overall nature of the solution is of a lower-bound solution, as it satisfies full equilibrium and the concept of maximizing the applied load to failure. The obtained results show excellent agreement with the lower-bound solution for both cases of perfectly smooth and rough pile interfaces, and an overall good agreement to the entire range of soil-pile interface roughness. Based on this excellent agreement, further problems can be investigated using the developed limit equilibrium method.
