PREDICTING THE UNLOADING BEHAVIOR OF MONOTONICALLY AND LATERALLY LOADED SLENDER PILES USING THE FINITE ELEMENT METHOD AND P-Y CURVES

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Hubbard, P. (2018). PREDICTING THE UNLOADING BEHAVIOR OF MONOTONICALLY AND LATERALLY LOADED SLENDER PILES USING THE FINITE ELEMENT METHOD AND P-Y CURVES. Unc Charlotte Electronic Theses And Dissertations.
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Abstract

The use of p-y curves is heavily engrained into geotechnical engineering practice. However, even with the prevalent use of p-y curves, these are only used to model the loading portion and not the unloading of a load test or loading demand in the field. A review of the literature shows that available software commonly used to model the problem of laterally loaded piles is used for loading and not unloading. Thus, there is a knowledge gap in the research for the unloading phase for laterally loaded piles. This thesis presents a method that has been developed to model the unloading behavior of a laterally loaded and unloaded single pile. A program has been developed using MATLAB that uses a 1D finite element model (FEM) for the pile and non-linear p-y curves to model the soil reaction in this soil-structure-interaction problem. The proposed method is based on a secant stiffness degradation model that models the soil and structure as a single system with a degrading stiffness. The method has been numerically implemented and validated with experimental data of a lateral load test involving loading and unloading.

Details
Author

Hubbard, Peter

Title

PREDICTING THE UNLOADING BEHAVIOR OF MONOTONICALLY AND LATERALLY LOADED SLENDER PILES USING THE FINITE ELEMENT METHOD AND P-Y CURVES

Physical Description

1 online resource (142 pages) : PDF

Date

2018

Degree Granting Institution

University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Abstract

The use of p-y curves is heavily engrained into geotechnical engineering practice. However, even with the prevalent use of p-y curves, these are only used to model the loading portion and not the unloading of a load test or loading demand in the field. A review of the literature shows that available software commonly used to model the problem of laterally loaded piles is used for loading and not unloading. Thus, there is a knowledge gap in the research for the unloading phase for laterally loaded piles. This thesis presents a method that has been developed to model the unloading behavior of a laterally loaded and unloaded single pile. A program has been developed using MATLAB that uses a 1D finite element model (FEM) for the pile and non-linear p-y curves to model the soil reaction in this soil-structure-interaction problem. The proposed method is based on a secant stiffness degradation model that models the soil and structure as a single system with a degrading stiffness. The method has been numerically implemented and validated with experimental data of a lateral load test involving loading and unloading.

Genre

masters theses

Subjects--Topics

Civil engineering

Degree

M.S.

Keywords

Finite Element Method
Laterally Loaded Pile
Pile Unloading
P-Y Curve
Secant Stiffness
Unloading Behavior

Subject Area

Civil Engineering

Advisor(s)

Pando, Miguel

Committee Members

Park, Youngjin
Cherukuri, Harish

Degree Note

Thesis (M.S.)--University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2018.

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Rights Holder Information

Copyright is held by the author unless otherwise indicated.

Identifier

Hubbard_uncc_0694N_11876

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.13093/etd:249