الفهرس 
IntroductionOnly 14 pages are availabe for public view
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Abstract
Battered piles are considered as an alternative to vertical piles in case of extreme lateral loads especially when the vertical piles are considered uneconomical. The response of a single vertical pile subjected to lateral loading can be calculated using the Strain Wedge (SW) model formulation. The SW method allows development of p-y curves for laterally loaded single vertical piles based on a three-dimensional soil-pile interaction and the consideration of both soil and pile properties (i.e., size, cross-section shape, flexural stiffness). This study proposes a modification to the SW method in order to predict the response of laterally loaded battered piles. The developed formulation is compiled into a computer code and validated using published full-scale and centrifuge tests of battered piles subjected to lateral loads. The proposed approach can provide the p-y curves for battered piles under lateral loads based on varying pile batter angle, flexural stiffness, soil relative density, pile size and pile shape contrary to current practices. The current practices use a p-multiplier on the p-y curves of an equivalent laterally loaded vertical pile to predict the response of the battered one. This multiplier is constant with the sand type and the variation of soil depth which is limited to be used in small projects as recommended by several international design codes. Unlike current practices where the p-y curve multiplier, used for vertical piles, is considered constant with depth, the proposed SW model accounts for the effect of confining pressure and sand relative density on the p-y curve multiplier. A parametric study is conducted to investigate the influence of soil relative density, pile batter angle, pile shape, pile size and pile flexural stiffness on the behavior of battered piles under lateral loads. The results show that the proposed model can capture the effect of soil-pile interaction on the predicted p-y curves for the battered piles loaded laterally. Finally, a three-dimensional finite element model for battered piles was developed and compared to the proposed model. The developed three-dimensional finite element model was calibrated using published full-scale and centrifuge model. The comparison shows that, despite the flexibility of the finite element modeling, a sensitivity analysis on the soil-pile interface parameters is required to predict the response of laterally loaded battered pile reliably.