You are on page 1of 25

I.I.

T KANPUR LECTURE (May 2004)


Pile-supported structures still collapse during earthquakes! What is the missing load in the design method?
By Dr SUBHAMOY BHATTACHARYA Centre for Urban Earthquake Engineering , Tokyo Institute of Technology (Japan)

Centre for Urban Earthquake Engineering (CUEE) was established in the Tokyo Institute of Technology on 1st September 2003 to mark the 80th anniversary of the 1923 Great Kanto Earthquake. CUEE program includes extensive and in-depth research and development of new technologies for the prevention of urban disasters caused by earthquakes. CUEE will work towards making global contributions in the areas of research and education as well as aim to become one of the most advanced international centers for Urban Earthquake Engineering.

THE LECTURE IS SUPPORTED BY: National Programme on Earthquake Engineering Education (NPEEE), a ministry of HRD (INDIA) initiative and 21st Century Centre of Excellence (COE) Program, Evolution of Urban Earthquake Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology (JAPAN).

Tokyo Institute of Technology

I.I.T Kanpur Lecture (May 2004)

Pile supported structures still collapse during earthquakes. What is missing?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

PILE-SUPPORTED STRUCTURES STILL COLLAPSE DURING EARTHQUAKES! WHAT IS THE MISSING LOAD IN THE DESIGN METHOD? Subhamoy Bhattacharya, B.E., PhD, I.Eng MICE (U.K). This lecture is a part of the initiation of collaboration between NPEEE (National Programme on Earthquake Engineering Education, A Ministry of HRD Initiative, INDIA) and Centre for Urban Earthquake Engineering (CUEE, Tokyo Institute of Technology, JAPAN). Dr Bhattacharya, who is currently a 21st Century Centre of Excellence Fellow at CUEE, will deliver this lecture at Indian Institute of Technology (Kanpur) during his academic visit in May 2004. Subhamoy Bhattacharya, worked for Consulting Engineering Services (India) Limited in Calcutta as a structural engineer from August 1998 to September 2000. He then joined University of Cambridge (UK) for carrying out post graduate studies in Earthquake Geotechnical Engineering. Since 2000, Subhamoys primary research interest is the failure mechanism of pile-supported structures during earthquakes. His research has identified a fundamental omission in seismic pile design which is believed to have caused many failures. He completed his PhD under the supervision of Professor Malcolm Bolton in October 2003. He then joined Fugro Limited (U.K), at its London office as an offshore geotechnical engineer and worked for about 4 months. He is currently on sabbatical as a 21st Century of Excellence (COE) fellow at the Centre for Urban Earthquake Engineering (CUEE), Tokyo Institute of Technology (Japan). This one hour lecture is a repetition of his 28th February 2004 Tokyo Lecture to the Japanese earthquake engineers, practicing engineers at Fugrowest Inc (Oakland, California), Alumni Lecture at Shibpur B.E.College (INDIA) and at the Friday Geotechnical Seminar (Cambridge, U.K). He has also presented this work in a succinct form at the 11th International Conference on Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering at Berkeley, 5th International Conference on case histories in Geotechnical Engineering (New York), 1st International Conference on Urban Earthquake Engineering (Tokyo). SYNOPSIS Critical infrastructures such as bridges, flyovers, hospitals etc are often founded on piled foundations. Collapse of such type of structures is still observed after strong earthquake. It is worth noting that these structures collapse despite the fact that a large factor of safety is employed in their design. This paper aims to point out that there is a fundamental omission in the seismic pile design. The current method of pile design is based on a bending mechanism where lateral loads due to inertia or slope movement induces bending failure in the pile. Thus, the current design methods simply treat piles as beam element. During earthquake induced liquefaction, the pile apart from experiencing the lateral loads has also to sustain the axial load that acts on it at all times. The part of the pile in liquefied soil acts as an unsupported column due to the loss of stiffness from the surrounding soil. If the axial load is high enough, a slender pile may fail by buckling instability and no lateral loads are required. This important consideration is currently missing in the design codes. Buckling and bending requires two different approaches in design. To avoid buckling, there is a requirement of minimum diameter based on the depth of liquefiable soil; a typical design graph is shown in the paper. It is proposed that the slenderness ratio of pile (i.e. the effective length of pile/ minimum radius of gyration) in the liquefiable soils be kept below 50; i.e. length to diameter ratio of about 12. The immediate need is to re-evaluate the safety of existing critical structures supported on piled foundations.

Bhattacharya

Page 1 of 24

I.I.T Kanpur Lecture (May 2004)

Pile supported structures still collapse during earthquakes. What is missing?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

1.0

INTRODUCTION

On failure of structures in general It is not an overstatement to say that when failure occurred in structures, they most often resulted due to loads that have been overlooked by the designer or regarded as secondary; rather than inadequate factor of safety. Table 1 summarises some of the case histories. It may be noted that in each of the case history, the designer either oversighted a load or could not apprehend the impact of that load.
Table 1: Example of failures of some well known case histories

Example Collapse of 5 km of 750mm diameter gas pipe line from the Jamuna Bridge in Bangladesh on 11th June 1998. Tay Bridge disaster of December 1879. The collapse occurred as the train approached the northern end of the fourth high span. The train plunged in the river and 75 people died.

Cause of failure Probably the main cause of the collapse was the failure to allow for the weight of the water in the pipe during testing, NCE (1998). The bridge was designed for horizontal wind load of 0.5kPa. Horizontal wind load on a moving train was not considered and is reported to be one of the main causes of collapse.

Tasman Bridge (Australia) disaster. On 5th Jan Ship impact load was not considered. 1975, a freight ship struck the bridge destroying two piers and causing the collapse of 127m of the deck. 12 people were killed. Ferrybridge cooling tower collapse, UK. On 1st November 1965, three of a group of 8 cooling towers at Ferrybridge collapsed in less than an hour. The towers collapsed in quick succession under strong wind loading. Serious underestimation of wind loading in the design. The wind loading was based on experiments using one isolated tower. It was not realized that the grouping of the towers may create turbulence.

Pile supported structures still collapse after an earthquake. Are we missing any load? Structures supported on piled foundations still collapse after earthquakes. Figure 1 shows one example from each of the 1964 Niigata earthquake (JAPAN), the 1995 Kobe earthquake (JAPAN) and the 2001 Bhuj earthquake (INDIA). It is most likely that these foundations failed by formation of plastic hinges in piles as has been observed during the excavation of some of the piles of the buildings damaged in 1964 Niigata earthquake, see Hamada (1992), Tokimatsu et al (1997). Figure 1(e) and 1(f) shows two such photographs. This suggests that the bending moments or shear forces that are experienced by the piles exceed those predicted by design methods (or codes of practice). All current design codes apparently provide a high margin of safety (using partial safety factors on load, material stress which increases the overall safety factor), yet occurrences of pile failure due to liquefaction are abundant. This implies that the actual moments or shear forces experienced by the pile are many times those predicted. Bhattacharya (2003), Bhattacharya and Bolton (2004a, 2004b, 2004c) has shown that the overall factor of safety against plastic hinging for a typical concrete pile can be of the order of 4 to 8. This is due to the multiplication of partial safety factors in load (1.5), material stress (1.5), fully plastic strength factor (1.67) and practical factors such as minimum number of bars, minimum percentage of steel due to shrinkage/ creep. It may be concluded that design methods may not be consistent with the physical mechanisms that govern the failure or the seismic forces are severely underestimated. This paper investigates if some load is missing in the design method. Bhattacharya Page 2 of 24

I.I.T Kanpur Lecture (May 2004)

Pile supported structures still collapse during earthquakes. What is missing?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Figure 1: Failure of piled foundation during the past earthquakes (1964-2001). (a): Piled Kandla tower that tilted during the 2001 Bhuj earthquake (INDIA), Madabhushi et al (2001); (b): Piled tanks after 1995 Kobe earthquake (JAPAN); (c) Failure of Showa Bridge during 1964 Niigata earthquake (JAPAN); Photo courtesy NISEE

Figure 1(e): Pile failure observed during the excavation of the NHK building after the 1964 Niigata earthquake, Hamada (1992); (f): Plastic hinging in the pile as observed in the NFCH building, Hamada (1992).

Bhattacharya

Page 3 of 24

I.I.T Kanpur Lecture (May 2004)

Pile supported structures still collapse during earthquakes. What is missing?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Failure of structures in earthquakes, growth of engineering knowledge - The survival path Earthquakes in the past have shown the shortcomings of current design methodologies and construction practices, at the cost of structural failures and loss of lives. Post earthquake investigations have led to improvements in engineering analysis, design and construction practices. This has progressively led to improvement in analysis, design and construction practices. In this context, Newmark and Rosenbluth (1971) remarked, Earthquake effects on structures systematically bring out the mistakes made in the design and construction even the minutest amount. A brief historical development of earthquake engineering practice showing how earthquake engineers have learned from failures in the past is outlined in Table 2.
Table 2: Historical development of earthquake engineering practice.

Earthquake 28 Dec, 1908 Reggio Messina earthquake (Italy). Reitherman (2000)


th

1923 Kanto earthquake (Japan) Kawashima (2002) 10th March, 1933 Long Beach earthquake (USA) Fatemi and James (1997) 1964 Niigata earthquake (Japan) 1971 San Fernando earthquake (USA) 1994 Northridge earthquake (USA) 1995 Kobe earthquake (Japan) Kawashima (2000)

Remarks 120,000 fatalities A committee of nine practicing engineers and five professors were appointed by Italian government to study the failures and to set design guidelines. Destruction of bridges, buildings. Foundations settled, tilted and moved. Destruction of buildings specially school buildings.

Post earthquake developments Base shear equation evolved i.e. the lateral force exerted on the structure is some percentage of the dead weight of the structure, (typically 5 to 15%). Seismic coefficient method (equivalent static force method using a seismic coefficient of 0.1 - 0.3) was first incorporated in design of highway bridges in Japan (MI 1927). UBC (1927) revised. This is the first earthquake for which acceleration records were obtained from the recently developed strong motion accelerograph. Soil liquefaction studies started. Liquefaction studies intensified. Bridge retrofit studies started. Importance of ductility in construction realized. Downward movement of a slope (lateral spreading) is said to be one of the main causes. JRA (1996) code modified (based on lateral spreading mechanism) for design of bridges.

Soil can also be a major contributor of damage. Bridges collapsed, dams failed causing flood. Soil effects observed. Steel connections failed in bridges. Massive foundation failure. Soil effects were the main cause of failure.

Thus, before applying any earthquake resistant design method to practical problems, or establishing a proposed mechanism, it is better to seek verification from all possible angles. Obtaining physical data on the performance of the design method is essential to that verification. Such physical data could be acquired from detailed case histories during earthquakes but only by putting society at risk in the meantime. The fact that large earthquakes are not frequent and not many piled structures are instrumented makes this method of verification difficult. Therefore, there is a need for small scale physical modelling. It will be seen later in this paper that dynamic centrifuge modeling has been used to verify a proposed failure mechanism. Bhattacharya Page 4 of 24

I.I.T Kanpur Lecture (May 2004)

Pile supported structures still collapse during earthquakes. What is missing?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

2.0 CURRENT UNDERSTANDING OF PILE FAILURE AND CODES OF PRACTICE


The current understanding of pile failure is based on a bending mechanism where lateral loads due to inertia and slope movements (lateral spreading) induce bending in the pile; see Figure 2(a). Permanent lateral deformation or lateral spreading is reported to be the main source of distress in piles, Abdoun and Dobry (2002), Finn and Fujita (2002), Hamada (2000). In terms of soil-pile interaction, the current mechanism of failure assumes that the soil pushes the pile. The deformation of the ground surface adjacent to piled foundations is often suggestive of this mechanism. Figure 2(b) shows surface observations of lateral spreading observed after the Bhuj earthquake near the Navalakhi port (Gujarat).

Figure 2: (a) Current understanding of pile failure, Finn and Thavaraj (2001); (b): Lateral spreading seen in Navalakhi port, Madabhushi et al (2001).

Japanese Code of Practice (JRA 1996) This unanimity has led the Japanese Code of Practice (JRA 1996) for example, to include checks on bending moments in piles due to lateral spreading of the ground, Figure 2(c). The code advises practicing engineers to design piles against bending failure assuming that the non-liquefied crust offers passive earth pressure to the pile and the liquefied soil offers 30% of the total overburden pressure.

Figure 2(c): JRA (1996) code of practice; (d): NEHRP Code of Practice

Bhattacharya

Page 5 of 24

I.I.T Kanpur Lecture (May 2004)

Pile supported structures still collapse during earthquakes. What is missing?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Eurocode 8 (1998) The Eurocode advises designers to design piles against bending due to inertia and kinematic forces arising from the deformation of the surrounding soil. It goes on saying: Piles shall be designed to remain elastic. When this is not feasible, the sections of the potential plastic hinging must be designed according to the rules of Part 1-3 of Eurocode 8. Eurocode 8 (Part 5) says Potential plastic hingeing shall be assumed for: a region of 2d from the pile cap a region of 2d from any interface between two layers with markedly different shear stiffness (ratio of shear moduli > 6) where d denotes the pile diameter. Such region shall be ductile, using proper confining reinforcements.

Indian Road Congress code (IRC 78, 2000) for design of bridges/ flyovers IRC 78 code (2000) prescribes the following: 1. Clause no 709.4.2 says that the piles may be designed taking into consideration all the load effects and their structural capacity examined as a column. The self load of pile or lateral load due to earthquake, water current force, etc. on the portion of free pile upto scour level and upto potential liquefaction level, if applicable, should be accounted for. 2. Clause 709.1.7 stipulates that the minimum diameter of piles shall be as follows: Type of piles: Driven cast-in-situ piles Precast piles Bored piles Bridges on Land 0.5m 0.35m 1.0m River bridges 1.2m 1.0m 1.2m

3. Clause 705.4.1 says that, in soil the minimum depth of foundations below the point of fixity should be the minimum length required for developing full fixity as calculated by any rational formula.
4. Clause 709.1.4 requires that the piles in streams, rivers, creeks, permanent steel liner should be provided at least upto maximum scour level. In case of marine clay or soft soil or soil having aggressive material, permanent steel liner of sufficient strength shall be used for the full depth of such strata. The minimum thickness of liner should be 5mm. 5. The reinforcements in pile should be provided for the full length of pile, as per the design requirements. However, the minimum area of longitudinal reinforcement shall be 0.4% of the area of the cross section in all concrete piles. Lateral reinforcement shall be provided in the form of links or spirals with minimum 8mm diameter steel, spacing not less than 150mm. Cover to main reinforcements shall not be less than 75mm.

Bhattacharya

Page 6 of 24

I.I.T Kanpur Lecture (May 2004)

Pile supported structures still collapse during earthquakes. What is missing?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Indian Standard IS: 1893 (1984 edition and 2002 edition) IS 1893 (1984) code prescribes that The piles should be designed for lateral loads neglecting lateral resistance of soil layers liable to liquefy.
Desirable field values of N to avoid liquefaction problems are given below: Zone III, IV, V I and II (for important structures Depth below ground level in metres Up to 5 10 Up to 5 10 N value 5 25 10 20 Remarks For values of depth between 5 to 10m linear interpolation is recommended.

The above clauses are retained in the 2002 edition. NEHRP code (Figure 2d) also focuses on bending strength of the pile. In summary, the current understanding of pile failure simply treats piles as beam elements and assumes that the lateral loads due to inertia and slope movement cause bending failure of the pile.

3.0 INCONSISTENCY IN OBSERVED CURRENT UNDERSTANDING

PILE

FAILURE

WITH

THE

This section of the paper highlights some of the inconsistencies of observations of pile failure. They are summarized below. Pile foundations are observed to fail even in level grounds After the detailed investigation of the failure of piles during 1995 Kobe earthquake, Tokimatsu and Asaka (1998) report that: In the liquefied level ground, most PC piles (Prestressed Concrete pile used before 1980s) and many PHC piles (Prestressed High Strength Concrete piles used after 1980s) bearing on firm strata below liquefied layers suffered severe damage accompanied by settlement and/or tilting of their superstructure, ... Figure 3 shows one such failure from the 1995 Kobe earthquake. The building is located in the centre of Fukaehama, Higashinanada- Ku. It is reported that building settled about 1.1m and tilted considerably. If lateral spreading is the cause of failure, it is unlikely that a piled foundation will collapse in a level ground i.e. in absence of lateral spreading. It must also be remembered that the PHC piles are high strength concrete piles and thus can sustain lot of bending strength.

Bhattacharya

Page 7 of 24

I.I.T Kanpur Lecture (May 2004)

Pile supported structures still collapse during earthquakes. What is missing?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Figure 3: Failure of a piled foundation in level ground after the 1995 Kobe earthquake, Tokimatsu (2003).

A note in the failure of bridges It is a common observation in seismic bridge failure that piers collapse while abutments remain stable, for example Figures 1 (c), 4(b&c). Figure 4(b) shows the collapse of one the piers of the Million Dollar Bridge leading to bridge failure. Similar failures were also observed of the Showa Bridge during the 1964 Niigata earthquake (see Figure 1(c)).

Figure 4: Bridge failure during earthquake liquefaction; (a): Schematic diagram of a bridge; (b) Failure of Million Dollar Bridge during the 1964 Alaska earthquake.

Bhattacharya and Bolton (2004a) notes that in a bridge design, the number of piles required to support an abutment is governed by lateral load due to the fact that the abutment, as well as carrying the dead load of the deck, has to retain earth and fills of the approach roads to the bridge (see Figure 4(a)). On the other hand, the bridge piers (intermediate supports) predominantly support the axial load of the deck. The lateral load acting on the pier during an earthquake is primarily the inertial force. The lateral capacity of a pile is typically 10 to 20% of the axial load capacity. Thus, for a multiple-span bridge having similar span lengths, the number of piles supporting an abutment will be more that that of a pier. It is worthwhile to note that in these Bhattacharya Page 8 of 24

I.I.T Kanpur Lecture (May 2004)

Pile supported structures still collapse during earthquakes. What is missing?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

examples only bridge piers collapsed while the abutments remained stable. This hints that the failure of bridge pier foundations may be influenced by axial load. In contrast, the current design methods only concentrate on lateral loads. Location of hinge formation It has been revealed after the excavation of the NHK building, the NFCH building, Hamada (1992) and the three-storied building, Tokimatsu et al (1997) that hinges formed in piles occurred within the top third of the pile. Had the cause of pile failure been lateral spreading, the location of the plastic hinge would have been expected at the interface of liquefiable and non-liquefiable layer as this section would experience the highest bending moment. Case history of the failure of Showa Bridge The example of the failure of the Showa Bridge (see Figure 1(c)) is extensively used to illustrate the effects of lateral spreading loads to piled foundations. Figure 4(c) shows the schematic representation of the failure of the bridge. As can be seen from Figure 4(c), piles under pier no P5 deformed towards the left and the piles of pier P6 deformed towards the right Takata et al (1965), Fukuoka (1966). Had the cause of pile failure been lateral spreading, the piers should have deformed identically in the direction of the slope. Furthermore, the piers close to the riverbanks did not fail, whereas the lateral spread is seen to be most severe at these places.

Figure 4(c): Schematic diagram of the failure of the Showa Bridge after Takata et al (1965). The diagram only shows half of the bridge. It must be noted that the direction of deflection shown by the red dashed circle contradicts the assumption of lateral spreading.

Further more, Bhattacharya et al (2003a, 2003b), Bhattacharya (2003) has shown that the piles of the Showa Bridge are safe against the current codal provisions of the JRA (1996) code with a factor of safety of 1.84. To summarize, the limitations of the current understanding of pile failure/codes of practice are: 1. The effect of axial load as soil liquefies is ignored. 2. Some observations of pile failure cannot be explained by the current hypothesis. 3. It has been shown, Bhattacharya (2003), that the pile foundation of Showa Bridge, which is considered safe by the 1996 JRA code, actually failed in 1964. It is worth mentioning that the JRA was revised few times after the 1964 Niigata earthquake i.e. in 1972, 1980 and 1996.

Bhattacharya

Page 9 of 24

I.I.T Kanpur Lecture (May 2004)

Pile supported structures still collapse during earthquakes. What is missing?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

4. A NEW THEORY OF PILE FAILURE


A new theory of pile failure is described in this section. This theory of pile failure is based on the buckling instability of slender columns, the structural nature of piles and Critical State soil mechanics. This theory has been formulated based on a study of fifteen case histories of pile foundation performance and verified using dynamic centrifuge tests. Analytical studies also support this theory of pile failure; see Bhattacharya and Bolton (2004a). A hypothesis of pile-soil interaction is also proposed in this theory. Details of this theory can be seen in Bhattacharya (2003), Bhattacharya and Bolton (2004c). This section describes the basics of this theory. Structural nature of piles From a structural perspective, axially loaded piles are long slender columns with lateral support provided by the surrounding soil. Figure 5(a) shows the length and diameter of tubular piles used in different projects around the world after Bond (1989) and Figure 5(b) shows a typical failed pile to represent its slenderness. Figure 5 (c) compares the dimension of a pile with respect to a crane and a person standing on the deck. If unsupported, these columns will fail in buckling instability and not due to crushing of the pile material.

Figure 5 (a): Length and diameter of tubular piles, Bond (1989), (b): A typical failed pile, Kawamura (1985), (c): A typical pile used in an offshore foundation project at Vietnam, Photo Courtesy Tim Carrington [Fugro Limited, UK].

Following Figure 5(a), it may be noted that piles normally have ratios of length to diameter of 25 to 100. A parameter rmin (minimum radius of gyration) given by Equation 1 is introduced to represent piles of any shape (square, tubular or circular). This parameter is used by structural engineer to study buckling of slender columns.

rmin =

I A

(1)

where I is the moment of inertia; A is the area of the pile section. Failure pattern of piled structure in the absence of liquefied soil Figure 6 shows the failure pattern of structures resting on slender columns which would represent a piled building or a bridge in absence of soil. Figure 6(a) may represent a piled raft or a pile group in the absence of soil. Figure 6(b) may represent a row of piles in the absence of soil as in the well-known failure of Showa Bhattacharya Page 10 of 24

I.I.T Kanpur Lecture (May 2004)

Pile supported structures still collapse during earthquakes. What is missing?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Bridge, see Figure 1 (c). Thus in the absence of soil, we would expect a pile-supported structure to fail in a similar pattern but it remains to be seen if liquefied soil behaves like absence of soil. It must be remembered that these failures shown in Figures 6(a&b) are due to axial load alone.
The static axial load at which a frame supported on slender columns becomes laterally unstable is commonly known as the critical load of the frame or buckling load (Pcr). The critical load can be estimated based on the concept of Eulers effective length of an equivalent pin-ended strut (Leff). Figure 7 shows the concept of effective length of pile adopted from column stability theory to normalise the different boundary conditions of pile tip and pile head. The Eulers elastic critical load (Pcr) i.e. the well known buckling formula given by Equation 2 can be extended to predict the buckling load of frames supported on slender columns. The simplest way is to estimate the buckling load one pile depending on the boundary condition of the top and bottom part and multiply by the number of piles. 2

Pcr =

EI
L2 eff

(2)

Figure 6: Failure of structures supported on slender columns; (a): A group of slender columns representing a pile group or a piled raft; (b): A row of slender columns representing a row of piles as in the Showa Bridge.

Boundary conditions of a pin-ended column and that of a piled structure It must be recognized that the buckling instability of frames supported on slender columns as shown in Figure 6 is different from the ones usually text book type or the one observed in an INSTRON machine [Figure 7 (b)]. In an Instron machine it is difficult to create a boundary condition which is free to translate at the top, as shown in Figure 6. In the case of most piled foundations, the top part is free to translate unless raked piles are used, see for example the Landing bridge performance reported by Berrill (2001). In the case of buckling of a frame the medium surrounding is air. On the other hand, for piles it is liquefied soil. The behaviour of liquefied can thus be thought to influence the behaviour of pile under the action of axial load.

Bhattacharya

Page 11 of 24

I.I.T Kanpur Lecture (May 2004)

Pile supported structures still collapse during earthquakes. What is missing?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Pile head unrestrained

Leff= L0

Pile head free to translate but fixed in direction

Buckling zone/ Liquefiable layer= L0

Leff= 2L0

Leff= 2L0
Eulers buckling of equivalent pinned strut Eulers buckling of equivalent pinned strut

Figure 7 (a): Concept of effective length of pile from Bhattacharya (2003). In the case of piles, the top of the pile is free to translate in most of the practical cases.

Figure 7 (b): Buckling test of model piles used in Centrifuge tests.

Effect of lateral load on buckling The failure shown in Figure 6 is due to the effects of axial load alone. In the presence of static lateral loads, the critical load would come down. In presence of dynamic loads, i.e. if the entire set up shown in Figure 6 is shaken, the frame would become unstable at a much lower load. Stability analysis of elastic columns (see Timoshenko and Gere, 1961) shows that the lateral deflections caused by lateral loads gets amplified in the presence of axial loads. If 0 is the deflection due to lateral loads alone, the final deflection gets amplified by

Bhattacharya

Page 12 of 24

I.I.T Kanpur Lecture (May 2004)

Pile supported structures still collapse during earthquakes. What is missing?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

the presence of axial loads. The term (/0) can be termed as the Buckling amplification factor (BAF) given by equation 3. (3) P 1 Pcr This form of expression, sketched in Figure 8 (a), can be used with good accuracy (less than 2% error) for all beam-columns having (P/Pcr) less than 0.6, Timoshenko and Gere (1961). Beyond the ratio of 0.6 the induced plastic strains cause a deterioration of elastic bending stiffness leading to a reduction in the critical buckling load Pcr, and to premature collapse.
B. A.F =
21 19 17 15 13 11 9 7 5 3 1
0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1

Buckling Amplification Factor

2000 1500 1000 500 0 0 5

Buckling load (Pcr) if unsupported Allowable load (P)

Load (kN)

10

15

20

(P/Pcr)

Pile length (m)

Figure 8(a): Buckling amplification factor and normalized axial load. Figure 8(b): Allowable load and buckling load of a typical pile (in unsupported).

The theory of pile failure is based on an idealization that a pile-supported structure such as a bridge or a building is a frame supported on slender columns as shown in Figures 6(a&b) with the support from the liquefiable soil. The part of the pile in liquefiable soil is the unsupported zone during seismic liquefaction. Each of these structures has a critical load i.e. the minimum axial load at which the frame becomes unstable. Allowable load and Buckling load of a pile. Is it practically important? Generally, as the length of the pile increases, the allowable load on the pile also increases primarily due to the additional shaft friction, but the buckling load (if the pile were laterally unsupported by soil) decreases inversely with the square of its length following Eulers formula (Equation 2). Figure 8(b) shows a typical plot for the variation of allowable load (P) and buckling load (Pcr) of a pile (if unsupported) against length of the pile. The pile in the above example has a diameter of 300mm (typical pile dimension in 1964 Japan) and is passing through a typical liquefied soil. The allowable load (P) is estimated based on conventional procedures with no allowance for liquefaction. Structural engineers generally demand a factor of safety of at least 3 against linear elastic buckling to allow for eccentricities, imperfections and reduction of stiffness due to yielding. Thus from Figure 8(b), if unsupported over a length of 10 metres or more, these columns will fail due to buckling instability and not due to crushing of the material. During earthquake-induced liquefaction, the soil surrounding the pile loses its effective confining stress and can no longer offer sufficient lateral support. The pile may now act as an unsupported column prone to axial instability. This instability may cause it to buckle sideways in the direction of least elastic bending stiffness under the action of axial load. In this case the pile may push the soil and it may not be necessary to invoke lateral spreading of the soil to cause a pile to collapse. Dynamic centrifuge modeling has been carried out to investigate this failure mechanism and is described in the next section.

Bhattacharya

Page 13 of 24

I.I.T Kanpur Lecture (May 2004)

Pile supported structures still collapse during earthquakes. What is missing?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

The above discussion and Figure 8(b) transpires that for all piles there exists a particular depth beyond which the pile will be subjected to buckling instability, if unsupported. Thus buckling is a feasible pile failure mechanism for most piles. It is now pertinent to mention that structural engineers consider buckling as one of the most destructive form of failure. It is sudden and depends on stiffness and not bending strength of a member. It is not an overstatement to say that most structures fail by buckling instability of some form. This form of failure must be dealt with great care and cannot be overlooked. Centrifuge tests to verify the failure mechanism of piles by buckling instability Dynamic centrifuge tests were carried out by Bhattacharya (2003), Bhattacharya et al (2002, 2003) to verify if fully embedded end-bearing piles passing through saturated, loose to medium dense sands and resting on hard layers buckle under the action of axial load alone if the surrounding soil liquefies in an earthquake. This would verify the hypothesis of pile failure by buckling instability. During earthquakes, the predominant loads acting on a pile are axial, inertial and those due to slope movement. The tests were designed in level ground to avoid the effects of lateral spreading. Twelve piles were tested in a series of four centrifuge tests including some which decoupled the effects of inertia and axial load. Figure 9(a) summarises the performance of the piles in the test showing the normalised axial load (P/Pcr). In the figure, P denotes the applied axial load on the pile and Pcr represents the elastic critical load of the pile treated as a column neglecting any support from the soil. It can be observed that piles having a P/Pcr ratio less than 0.5 did not fail and in each case a series of earthquakes had been fired. On the other hand, piles having P/Pcr ratio greater than 0.75 failed during an earthquake either under the action of axial load or combined axial load and inertia. This result is consistent with Figure 8(a) where it can be observed that for a P/Pcr ratio of 0.75, the transverse deflection due to lateral loads will be amplified at least 4 times giving rise to an additional P- moment which eventually leads to plastic collapse.

Did not fail

Failed
0.75 0.96 0.97 1.01

1.48 1.04 1.25

P/Pcr

0.22

0.5 0.25 0.35

Axial load + Inertia

Axial load + Inertia

Only axial load

Figure 9(a): Summary of the pile performance in the centrifuge tests; (b): A typical failure observed in a centrifuge test, after Bhattacharya et al (2002). Figure 9(b) shows a typical surface observation after the test. It immediately becomes obvious from the figure that the failure pattern is similar to the failure as was observed in Figure 1(a&b). The pile head tilted and rotated in one direction and the effect was predominantly due to the axial load and on the other hand the buildings were in laterally spreading ground. This demonstrates that the mechanism of failure observed in a lateral spreading ground could be replicated in a level ground. More on the replication of mechanism can be seen in Bhattacharya (2003), Bhattacharya et al (2003). Figure 10 (a) shows the formation of a hinge in a pile

Bhattacharya

Page 14 of 24

I.I.T Kanpur Lecture (May 2004)

Pile supported structures still collapse during earthquakes. What is missing?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

in a centrifuge test. The hinge formed at the top third of the pile. This is also consistent with the field observations as can be seen in Figure 10(b) after Tokimatsu et al (1997). Figure 11(c) shows one photograph of pile failure. The same pile was tested in similar conditions, but in the absence of soil and the mode shape is shown in Figure 11(d). For Eulers buckling, it is obvious that the hinge should form at the bottom for a cantilever strut (Figures 6(a&b)), but for the pile buckling, it was observed that the hinge formed within the top half of the pile. For pile buckling, it was also noted that curvature decreased with depth. Curvature being related to bending moment, the test result suggests that that lower part of the liquefied soil zone offered resistance to the buckling pile. It is concluded by Bhattacharya et al (2002) and Bhattacharya (2003) that liquefied soil cannot prevent the initiation of buckling in an initially straight pile, but that some secondary support then becomes available. Thus pile buckling is in some way different from Eulers classical buckling. In the case of Eulers classical buckling, the resistance to the buckling strut is air. On the other hand for the buckling of piles, the resistance is due to the liquefied soil.

Figure 10: Pile failure in a centrifuge and in a field. (a): Pile failure in a centrifuge with hinging at the top third; (b): Field case history of formation of a hinge, after Tokimatsu et al (1997); (c): Pile buckling; (d) Eulers classical buckling.

Pile-soil interaction during buckling and the source of resistance of liquefied soil Sufficient information has been obtained from the centrifuge models to propose a hypothesis of pile-soil interaction during a buckling event. The pile begins to buckle when the front of zero effective stress reaches a critical depth HC given by Equation 4 obtained from Equation 2, taking Leff = 2HC for a pile with no restraint at the head.
HC =

2 EI
4P

(4)

This buckling instability will cause the pile to shear the soil adjacent to it, which will start offering temporary resistance. Figure 11(a) schematically shows the pile-soil interaction during the post-buckling period. The soil element in front of the buckling pile, marked A in Figure 11(a), will be subjected to monotonic shearing in addition to the cyclic shearing due to the earthquake. The V/k ratio (i.e. the ratio of velocity of the pile to the permeability of the soil) which was of the order of 100s, suggests that the event is best looked upon as undrained. The resistance to the buckling pile is due to this undrained strength of the soil, which is the strength when sheared at constant volume. It should be obvious from the definition that the stress path must follow the Critical State line. In the q-p plot shown in Figure 11(b), a soil element during the pre-buckling period, will start from some point in the q-p plot, shown by X, and generate positive pore pressure due to the earthquake shaking. The stress path will progress towards the origin until it hits the Phase Bhattacharya Page 15 of 24

I.I.T Kanpur Lecture (May 2004)

Pile supported structures still collapse during earthquakes. What is missing?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Transformation line. The stress path will run up and down like a butterfly wing passing through or near the origin. At the same time, the pile length will progressively be unsupported by the soil grains, in top down fashion, until the critical depth is reached. As the critical depth is reached the pile starts to buckle. The behaviour of a soil element in front of the pile (marked A in Figure 11(a)) can be described as similar to Triaxial Extension while the soil behind the pile (marked B in Figure 11(b)) can be described as similar to Triaxial Compression. Due to the mode shape of the pile, the top-soil in the near field (marked 1 in Figure 11(a)) will be sheared more than the bottom soil in the near field (marked 3 in Figure 11(a)). The imposition of undrained monotonic shear strains (pile pushing the soil) in loose to medium dense sand at low effective stresses will lead to an attempt to dilate. The event being at constant volume will suppress this potential dilatancy by a negative increment of pore pressure in the locally sheared soil. This negative increment of pore pressure creates an increase in effective stress, which temporarily provides support to the buckling pile. The pore fluid pressure in the sheared zone can drop to a maximum of -100kPa, which would correspond to the greatest possible effective stress increment during shearing. Beyond this value, vapour bubbles tends to nucleate. On the stress path the soil element in front of the pile moves from Y to Z, Figure 11(b). This local reduction of pore pressure would induce a transient flow into the sheared soil from the neighbouring liquefied but not monotonically sheared soil. The lateral resistance of the liquefied soil would then decrease.
D i re c t i on o f b u c k li n g

Due to monotonic undrained shearing as the buckling pile pushes the soil
(1 )

Upper limit of shearing due to cavitation 100 kPa + uhy


X

(2 )

(3 )

D ir e c tio n o f s h a k in g

Y
(C ) (A ) (B )

Due to earthquake shearing (Cyclic)

P la n o f t h e E S B B o x

Figure 11: Pile soil interaction; (a) Schematic diagram of pile-soil interaction during buckling; (b): Stress path of a soil element close to the pile, where uhy = hydrostatic pressure.

It is the upper part of a liquefiable sand layer that remains longest in a state of zero effective stress due to upward hydraulic gradients. It is also the upper part of the pile which displaces most, and which can fully soften to zero shear strength the supporting soil adjacent to it. Ultimately, therefore, the upper part of the soil can be properly described as liquefied, in the true sense of the word in science or common language, according to the necessary conditions laid down by Schofield (1981). For the lower part of the pile, the resistance will increase as the pile shears the initially liquefied soil but not for a sufficient duration. This is due to the development of negative pore pressure in the sheared soil which will induce transient flow from Bhattacharya Page 16 of 24

I.I.T Kanpur Lecture (May 2004)

Pile supported structures still collapse during earthquakes. What is missing?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

the neighboring liquefied but not monotonically sheared soil. The buckling pile will also suffer increasing loss of bending stiffness due to plastic yielding, so the restraint necessary to hold it in equilibrium will also increase. This imbalance between increasing bending moment created by displacement of pile cap, deteriorating bending stiffness of the pile and the reducing differential soil support along its length, creates a shallow plastic hinge which then leads to the dynamic collapse of the structure. Study of field case records Fifteen reported cases of pile foundation performance during earthquake-induced liquefaction were studied and analyzed by Bhattacharya (2002, 2003), Bhattacharya et al (2004). Six of the piled foundations were found to survive while the others suffered severe damage. Figure 12 presents the effective length and the minimum radius of gyration for the case histories studied. Table 3 identifies the case history. The effective length is estimated based on the concept described in Figure 7. The effective length depends on the fixity of the pile below and above the liquefiable zone. If the pile is embedded to about 6 times the diameter of the pile in the non-liquefied hard base below the liquefied soil, the base can be assumed to be fixed. On the other hand, if the pile is not sufficiently embedded in the firm ground so that it can rotate then it can be assumed that the pile is pinned at the bottom. Details on the concept of effective length of pile can be seen in Bhattacharya (2003). A line representing Leff/rmin = 50 is shown in the plot which distinguishes the piles of poor performance from the piles of good performance. This line is of some significance in structural engineering, as it is often used to distinguish between long and short columns. Columns having a slenderness ratio below 50 are expected to fail in crushing whereas those above 50 are expected to fail in buckling instability. It can be concluded that the case histories support the hypothesis of failure of pile by buckling instability.

Figure 12: Plot of effective length (Leff) and minimum radius of gyration (rmin)

Bhattacharya

Page 17 of 24

I.I.T Kanpur Lecture (May 2004)

Pile supported structures still collapse during earthquakes. What is missing? Table 3: Study of 15 case histories

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

ID in Fig 12 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O

Case History and Reference 10 storey-Hokuriku building, Hamada(1992) Landing bridge, Berrill et al (2001) 14 storey building, Tokimatsu et al (1996) Hanshin expressway pier, Ishihara (1997) LPG tank 101, Ishihara (1997) Kobe Shimim hospital, Soga (1996) N.H.K building, Hamada (1992) NFCH building. Hamada (1992) Yachiyo Bridge Hamada (1992) Gaiko Ware House, Hamada (1992) 4 storey fire house, Tokimatsu et al (1996) 3 storied building at Kobe university, Tokimatsu et al (1998) Elevated port liner railway, Soga (1996) LPG tank 106,107 Ishihara (1997) Showa bridge, Hamada (1992)

Pile section/ type 0.4m dia RCC 0.4m square PSC 2.5m dia RCC 1.5m dia RCC 1.1m dia RCC 0.66m dia steel tube 0.35m dia RCC 0.35m dia RCC hollow 0.3m dia RCC 0.6m dia PSC hollow 0.4m dia PSC 0.4m dia PSC 0.6m dia RCC 0.3m dia RCC hollow 0.6m dia steel tube.

L0* (m) 5 4 12.2 15 15 6.2 10 8 8 14 18 16 12 15 19

Leff (m) 5 2 12.2 15 15 6.2 20 16 16 28 18 16 12 15 38

rmin (m) 0.1 0.12 0.63 0.38 0.28 0.23 0.09 0.10 0.08 0.16 0.10 0.12 0.15 0.08 0.21

Analytical studies has been carried out by Bhattacharya (2003), Bhattacharya and Bolton (2004a) to study the effect of buckling of piles. They used Hetenyis buckling (1946) i.e. Eulers buckling of strut in a resistive medium. The resistive medium was the liquefied soil.

A final note on the theory of pile failure The theory of pile failure is a combination of two critical phenomenon and transient flow. The initiation of buckling is guided by the CRITICAL LOAD Eulers elastic buckling load. Whether a structure will become unstable is guided by the critical load. But once it starts buckling, the liquefied soil will offer resistance. The undrained monotonic soil behaviors will dictate the location of the hinge. This can be well modeled by CRITICAL STATE SOIL MECHANICS. The soil behavior suggests that there will be suctions generated in the near field of the soil which would induce transient flow. More research is required to study this complex pile-soil interaction.

5. NEW DESIGN APPROACH TO AVOID BUCKLING OF PILES


Through the analysis of reported case histories, geotechnical centrifuge tests and analytical studies, it has been demonstrated that buckling is a possible failure mode of piled foundations in areas of seismic liquefaction. Influences such as lateral loading due to slope movement, inertia effects due to early shaking or out-of-line straightness, will cause lateral deflections which are severely amplified if the axial load is permitted to approach the buckling load. These lateral load effects are, however, secondary to the basic requirements that piles in liquefiable soils must be checked against Eulers buckling. In contrast, all current design methods, such as JRA (1996), NEHRP (2000) or Eurocode 8 (1998), focus on the bending strength of the pile and overlook considerations necessary to avoid buckling in the event of soil liquefaction. In this section a new framework for designing pile foundations in liquefiable deposits is proposed. The principal aim of this framework is to provide a design methodology that takes into consideration all the identified pile failure mechanisms. Details can be seen in Bhattacharya (2003). This section only highlights the basic principles.

Bhattacharya

Page 18 of 24

I.I.T Kanpur Lecture (May 2004)

Pile supported structures still collapse during earthquakes. What is missing?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

The design method should safeguard the piles against: 1. Buckling failure due to unsupported pile carrying axial loads in liquefied soil. 2. Formation of a collapse mechanism due to additional lateral spreading forces. 3. Excessive settlement leading to serviceability failure. In design, beam bending and column buckling are approached in two different ways. Bending is a stable mechanism, i.e. if the lateral load is withdrawn; the pile comes back to its initial configuration provided the yield limit of the material has not been exceeded. This failure mode depends on the bending strength (moment for first yield, MY; or plastic moment capacity, MP) of the member under consideration. On the other hand, buckling is an unstable mechanism. It is sudden and occurs when the elastic critical load is reached. It is the most destructive mode of failure and depends on the geometrical properties of the member, i.e. slenderness ratio and not on the yield strength of the material. For example, steel pipe piles having identical length and diameter but having different yield strength [fy of 200MPa, 500MPa, 1000MPa] will buckle at almost the same axial load but can resist different amounts of bending. Bending failure may be avoided by increasing the yield strength of the material, i.e. by using highgrade concrete or additional reinforcements, but it may not suffice to avoid buckling. To avoid buckling, there should be a minimum pile diameter depending on the depth of the liquefiable soil.

Eulers buckling of equivalent pinned strut (Leff)

Liquefiable zone(DL)

Effective length (Leff)

(DL)

Length of the pile(L)

(DF)

Dense non-liquefiable zone This pile being analysed

Point of fixity in non-liquefied zone

Figure 13: During full liquefaction, piles are practically unsupported. Pile should have adequate stiffness such that it does not buckle.

Bhattacharya

Page 19 of 24

I.I.T Kanpur Lecture (May 2004)

Pile supported structures still collapse during earthquakes. What is missing?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Lateral spreading starts Non-liquefied crust may be present

Liquefiable zone Plastic hinges to be formed for failure

Dense non-liquefiable zone

Figure 14: In sloping ground, piles will be subjected to lateral spreading loads. Combined action of lateral spreading and axial load should not form a collapse mechanism.

Simplified approach to avoid buckling Lateral spreading loads and inertia loads may act in two different planes. Thus the pile not only has axial stress but also may have bending stresses in two axes. The pile represents a most general form of a beamcolumn (column carrying lateral loads) element with bi-axial bending. If the section of the pile is a long column, analysis would become extremely complex and explicit closed-form solution does not exist. The solution of such a problem demand an understanding of the way in which the various structural actions interact with each other i.e. how the axial load influences the amplification of lateral deflection produced by the lateral loads. In the simplest cases i.e. when the section is short column, superposition principle can be applied i.e. direct summation of the load effects. In other cases, careful consideration of the complicated interactions needs to be accounted. Designing such type of member needs a three-dimensional interaction diagram where the axes are: Axial (P), major-axis moment (Mx) and minor-axis moment (My).The analysis becomes far more complicated in presence of dynamic loads. The above complicated non-linear process can be avoided by designing the section of the pile as short column i.e. for concrete section - length to least lateral dimension less than 15 (British Code 8110) or a slenderness ratio (effective length to minimum radius of gyration) less than 50. Figure 15 shows one such design graph from Bhattacharya (2003), Bhattacharya and Tokimatsu (2004). The salient features of the design curve are: 1) Figure 15 shows a typical graph showing the minimum diameter of pile necessary to avoid buckling. In this case non-linear analysis can be avoided. The lateral load can now be accounted for in simple bending calculations. 2) The slenderness ratio is kept around 50. The study of case histories (see Figure 12) supports this assumption. 3) Piles are solid concrete section having E (Youngs modulus) of 22.5103MPa) 4) Steel piles are tubular having E of 210GPa. 5) The piles are not in a single row and at least in 22 matrix form. Bhattacharya Page 20 of 24

I.I.T Kanpur Lecture (May 2004)

Pile supported structures still collapse during earthquakes. What is missing?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

6) The thickness of the steel pile is based on API code (American Petroleum Code) i.e. the minimum thickness is 6.35mm + (diameter of the pile/100) based on stress analysis due to pile driving.

Minimum dia of pile from buckling consideration


2.25 2
Concrete pile
Steel tubular pile

Diameter of pile (m)

1.75 1.5 1.25 1 0.75 0.5 0.25 0 4 6

10

12

14

16

18

20

Thickness of liquefiable layer (m)


Figure 15: Proposed minimum diameter of pile necessary to avoid buckling, Bhattacharya and Tokimatsu (2004).

Proposed failure criteria in simplified design approach Bhattacharya and Tokimatsu (2004) proposed the following design criteria for piles: (1) During the entire earthquake, the pile should be in stable equilibrium, the amplitude of vibration should be such that no section of the pile should have an ultimate limiting strain for the material. For example in the case of concrete piles, the ultimate strain in the pile should not exceed 0.003. At this strain, visible cracks appear in concrete leading to deterioration of bending stiffness. This criterion automatically ensures that no plastic hinge will form and no cracks will open up. Steel tubular piles are ductile i.e. they can withstand large amount of inelastic strain before yield and thus can be a good choice. (2) The settlement of the piled foundation should be within acceptable limits for the structures. However, the settlement should be limited to a maximum of 10% of the pile diameter to avoid base failure (end-bearing failure) based on Fleming et al (1992).

Bhattacharya

Page 21 of 24

I.I.T Kanpur Lecture (May 2004)

Pile supported structures still collapse during earthquakes. What is missing?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

6.

CONCLUSIONS

It has been shown that buckling of a pile under the action of axial load alone due to the diminishing soil stiffness owing to liquefaction is a feasible pile failure mechanism during earthquakes. Lateral loads like inertia, slope movement loads will make the piled foundation unstable at a much lower load. However, these lateral loads are secondary to the basic requirements that piles in liquefiable soil must be checked against Eulers buckling. Recommendations to Practice 1. Codes of practice need to include a criterion to prevent buckling of slender piles in liquefiable soils. The designer should first estimate the equivalent length for Eulers buckling, by considering any restraints offered by the pile cap, or the zone of embedment beneath the liquefiable soil layer. It is then necessary to select a pile section having a margin of factor of safety against buckling under the worst credible loads. 2. Designers should specify fewer, large modulus piles, in order to avoid problems with buckling due to liquefaction. 3. Cellular foundations of contiguous, interlocked sections should also be effective Essential checks that a safe design procedure should ensure A safe design procedure should ensure that the piles have enough strength and stiffness to sustain the following: (1): A collapse mechanism should not form in the piles under the combined action of lateral loads imposed upon by the earthquake and the axial load. Figure 14 shows such a mechanism. At any section of the pile, bending moment should not exceed allowable moment of the pile section. The shear stress load at any section of the pile should not exceed the allowable shear capacity. (2): A pile should have sufficient embedment in the non-liquefiable hard layer below the liquefiable layer to achieve fixity to carry moments induced by the lateral loads. If proper fixity is not achieved, the piled structure may slide due to the kinematic loads. The fixity depth is shown by DF in Figure 13. Typical calculations carried out using the method proposed by Davisson and Robinson (1965) shows that the point of fixity lies between 3 to 6 times the diameters of the pile in the non-liquefiable hard layer. Details can be seen in Bhattacharya (2003). (3): Axial load acting on the pile during full liquefaction without buckling and becoming unstable. It has to sustain the axial load and vibrate back and forth, i.e. must be in stable equilibrium when the surrounding soil has almost zero stiffness owing to liquefaction. As mentioned earlier, lateral loading due to ground movement, inertia, or out-of-straightness, will increase lateral deflections which in turn can cause plastic hinges to form, reducing the buckling load, and promoting more rapid collapse. These lateral load effects are, however, secondary to the basic requirements that piles in liquefiable soils must be checked against Eulers buckling. This implies that there is a requirement of a minimum diameter of pile depending on the likely liquefiable depth. (4): The settlement in the foundation due to the loss of soil support should be within the acceptable limit. The settlement should also not induce end-bearing failure in the pile. Further research needs identified The research presented in this paper has identified the limitations of the existing design methods of piled foundations in liquefaction hazard areas for e.g. Japanese Road Association JRA (1996), Eurocode 8 (1998), Bhattacharya Page 22 of 24

I.I.T Kanpur Lecture (May 2004)

Pile supported structures still collapse during earthquakes. What is missing?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

and NEHRP (2000). It seems that many of the bridges and buildings designed based on the existing design codes are unsafe. Based on the above fact the following research need is identified. The immediate need is to re-evaluate the safety of the structures designed based on the existing design methods, see Bhattacharya (2004). Structures that are unsafe will need retrofitting to withstand future impacts of earthquakes. Keeping this view in mind, the suggested future research work is outlined below. Identifying the parameters for systematic evaluation of safety of existing structures founded on piles designed based on existing design methodologies. Some of the parameters identified are: Site characterisation i.e. depth of liquefiable soil at the site of the structure, slope of the ground, seasonal variation of ground water table. This would help to identify the nonliquefied crust at the site and expected lateral loads in the pile. Slenderness ratio of piles in liquefiable region. This would check the stability of pile against Eulers buckling. Once unstable structures (for e.g. abutment/piers of bridges, or piled buildings) are identified, strategies for retrofitting have to be researched. This will involve means to improve stability of foundations. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author wishes to thank Cambridge Commonwealth Trust, Nehru Trust for Cambridge University (New Delhi), Overseas Research Award (U.K Government) for funding him to carry out the research. The author wishes to acknowledge the various inputs provided by Dr Gopal Madabhushi, Dr S.K. Haigh, Professor C.R. Calladine, Professor T.D.O Rourke, Mr Allan McRobie (Reader in Structural engineering at University of Cambridge), Professor Ross Boulanger and Dr Kenichi Soga (PhD examiners) in this research. The author also is especially thankful to Professor Kohji Tokimatsu for making arrangements for the fellowship what he is enjoying. He also wishes to acknowledge the technicians of Schofield Centre and the workshop technicians of Cambridge University Engineering Department. On a personal note, the author wishes to thank his elder brother, for his inspiration, who was in Gujarat (Surendranagar) during the 2001 Bhuj earthquake which killed over 20,000 people. REFERENCES 1. Berrill,J.B., Christensen, S.A, Keenan, R. P., Okada, W. and Pettinga, J.R., (2001). Case Studies of Lateral Spreading Forces on a Piled Foundation, Geotechnique 51, No. 6, pp 501-517. 2. Bhattacharya, S (2004): A method to evaluate the safety of the existing piled foundations against buckling in liquefiable soils, Proc of the 1st International Conference on Urban Earthquake Engineering, Centre for Urban Earthquake Engineering, Tokyo Institute of Technology, 8-9th March, Tokyo. 3. Bhattacharya, S, Madabhushi, S.P.G and Bolton, M.D (2004) An alternative mechanism of pile failure in liquefiable deposits during earthquakes, Geotechnique 54, Issue 3 (April), pp 203-213. 4. Bhattacharya, S and K. Tokimatsu (2004): Essential criteria for design of piled foundations in seismically liquefiable areas, 39th Japan National Geotechnical Conference. Sponsored by Japanese Geotechnical Society, 7th to 9th July, 2004. 5. Bhattacharya, S. and Bolton, M.D. (2004a). A fundamental omission in seismic pile design leading to collapse, Proc. 11th Int. Conf. on Soil dynamics and Earthquake Engineering. Berkeley, California, January 79, 2004, pp 820-827. 6. Bhattacharya, S. and Bolton, M.D. (2004b). Errors in design leading to pile failure during seismic liquefaction, Proc. 5th Int. Conf. on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering. Eds (Shamsher Prakash) New York, April 13-17, 2004, Paper no 12A-12. 7. Bhattacharya, S and Bolton, M.D (2004c): Pile failure in earthquake liquefaction Theory and Practice, International Conference on Cyclic Behavior of Soil and Liquefaction phenomenon CBS04, Bochum, Germany, 31st March 2nd April, 2004. A.A. Balkema Publisher. 8. Bhattacharya, S and Bolton, M.D (2004d): Buckling of piles during seismic liquefaction, Paper number 95; 13th World Conference on Earthquake Engineering, Vancouver, Canada. Bhattacharya Page 23 of 24

I.I.T Kanpur Lecture (May 2004)

Pile supported structures still collapse during earthquakes. What is missing?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________

9. Bhattacharya,S. Madabhushi, S.P.G and Bolton, M.D (2003a) Pile instability during earthquake liquefaction, Proc of the 16th ASCE Engineering Mechanics Conference (EM 2003), Paper no404, University of Washington, Seattle 16-18th July 2003. Can be seen at www.ce.washington.edu/em03/proceedings/paper/404.pdf. 10. Bhattacharya, S., Madabhushi, S.P.G, Bolton,M.D, S.K.Haigh and Soga, K (2003b) A reconsideration of the safety of the piled bridge foundations in liquefiable soils. Technical report (TR 328) of Cambridge University. (http://www-civ.eng.cam.ac.uk/geotech_new/publications/TR/TR328.pdf). This is accepted for publication in Soils and Foundations (Japan). 11. Bhattacharya, S. (2003). Pile instability during earthquake liquefaction. PhD thesis: University of Cambridge, U.K. 12. Bhattacharya, S (2002); Analysis of reported case histories of pile foundation performance during earthquakes, 7th Young Geotechnical Engineers Symposium, 17-19th July 2002, Dundee (U.K) 13. Bond, A.J. 1989 Behaviour of displacement piles in over-consolidated clay PhD thesis, Imperial College (U.K). 14. Eurocode 8 (Part 5): Design provisions for earthquake resistance of structures, foundations, retaining structures and geotechnical aspects, European Committee for Standardization, Brussels. 15. Finn W.D.L and Thavaraj, T (2001)/. Deep foundations in liquefiable soils: Centrifuge tests and method of analysis. Proc. of the 4th Int. Conf. on recent advances in geotechnical earthquake engineering and soil dynamics. San Diego, California, March 26-31, 2001. 16. Fukuoka, M (1966) Damage to Civil Engineering Structures, Soils and Foundations, Volume-6, No-2, pp 45-52. 17. Hamada,M (1992)Large ground deformations and their effects on lifelines: 1964 Niigata earthquake, 1983 Nihonkai-Chubu earthquake Case Studies of liquefaction and lifelines performance during past earthquake,. Technical Report NCEER-92-0001, Volume-1. 18. Ishihara,K (1997). Geotechnical aspects of the 1995 Kobe earthquake, Proc. of ICSMFE, Hamburg, pp 2047-2073. 19. Indian Road Congress Code (IRC 78, 2000): Standard specification and code of practice for road bridges, Section VII, Foundations and Substructure (Second revision). Published by the Indian Road Congress, Jamnagar House, Shahajahan Road, New Delhi 110011. 20. JRA (1996), Specification for Highway Bridges, Part V, Seismic Design, Japanese Road Association. 21. Kawamura, S., Nishizawa, T., and Wada, T., (1985): Damage to piles due to liquefaction found by excavation twenty years after earthquake, Nikkei Architecture, Tokyo, Japan, pp 130-134 (in Japanese). 22. NEHRP 2000 (National Earthquake Hazard Reduction Program). Commentary for Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA, USA 369). Seismic regulation for new buildings. 23. NISEE: National Information Services for Earthquake Engineering, University of California, Berkeley. 24. Soga,K. Geotechnical aspects of Kobe earthquake, Chapter 8 of EEFIT report on Kobe earthquake, Institution of Structural Engineers, UK. 25. Schofield, A.N (1981) Dynamic and earthquake geotechnical centrifuge modelling, Proc. of the Int. Conf on recent advances in geotechnical earthquake engineering and soil dynamics. 26. Timoshenko, S.P and Gere,J.M Theory of elastic stability, McGraw Hill book company, New York, 1961. 27. Tokimatsu, K. Mizuno, H and Kakurai, M (1996). Building Damage associated with Geotechnical problems. Special issue of Soils and Foundations, pp 219-234. 28. Tokimatsu, K., Oh-oka Hirishi, Satake, K., Shamato Y., Asaka Y (1997); Failure and deformation modes of piles due to liquefaction-induced lateral spreading in the 1995 Hyogoken-Nambu earthquake., Journal Struct. Eng. AIJ (Japan) No 495, pp 95-100.

Bhattacharya

Page 24 of 24

You might also like