Experimental Study on the Dynamic Response of PHC Pipe-Piles in Liquefiable Soil

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Shaking-table testing of seismic performance and dynamic interaction of prestressed high-strength concrete (PHC) pipe-piles in saturated soils and unsaturated soils was conducted using a series of sine waves, typical earthquake waves, as well as artificial ground motions based on in situ measurements. The presented test results, involving the time history of water pore pressure ratio and the responding displacement related to soil liquefaction, indicated that the natural frequency of soil-pile system decreased because of gradual degradation of soil and pile shift. Moreover, the peak displacement responses of piles in saturated soil were larger than the peak displacements in unsaturated soil. In addition, prestressing in pile was beneficial to the resistance of pile damage or degradation. These experimental results were able to calibrate FE models and to provide a database for seismic design of PHC pipe-piles.