Proceedings of Indian Geotechnical Conference

December 22-24,2013, Roorkee

PREDICTION OF NONLINEAR CHARACTERISTICS OF HOLLOW STEEL

SINGLE PILE UNDER VERTICAL VIBRATIONS

S. S. Choudhary, Research Scholar, Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Delhi, E-mail: sqhv.snkr@gmail.com
B. Manna, Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, IIT Delhi, E-mail: bmanna@civil.iitd.ac.in

ABSTRACT: In the present study, the dynamic response characteristics of hollow steel single pile of diameter
0.114 m and length of 3.0 m were investigated in the field under varying levels of vertical harmonic excitation with
static load of 10 kN. The vertical vibration tests were conducted for different eccentric moments to obtain the
frequency - amplitude response of the soil-pile system. The continuum approach of Novak is used to predict the
dynamic behaviour of single piles. From the comparison curves of frequency-amplitude response, it is found that
the resonant frequencies and amplitudes obtained from continuum approach are close to the dynamic test results.
The accuracy of the theory in predicting the nonlinear responses are found highly dependent on the choice of
boundary zone parameters.

INTRODUCTION
More recently, the growing need of support
foundations subjected to dynamic loads, such as
offshore structures; wind turbines and hydraulic
power plant has forced authorities and
development agencies to exploit lands with poor
soil characteristics. This has led to the development
and construction of single and group pile
foundations subjected to dynamic loading. The
main concern involved in the analysis of pile under
dynamic loading is to predict the nonlinear soil-
pile behavior and the impedance functions of piles.
To understand the dynamic behavior of soil-pile
system there are many theoretical approaches have
been developed and extensively use in pile
foundation.
A number of methods have been available to
evaluate the dynamic response and impedance
functions of piles, including Winkler models, finite
element methods, and the continuum approach.
Novak and his co-workers (Novak 1974; Nogami
and Novak 1976; Novak and El Sharnouby 1983)
simplified the continuum approach by introducing
the plane strain theory for the calculation of the
impedance functions of piles. Novak and Sheta
(1980) introducing the concept of a weak soil
boundary zone around the pile to account for soil
non linearity and soil-pile separation. The
nonlinear dynamic behaviour of piles was also
investigated through experimental studies. Blaney
et al. (1987) conducted a large-amplitude vertical
vibration test of a full-scale group pile and two
single piles. Novak and Grigg (1976); El
Marsafawi et al. (1992) and Manna and Baidya,
(2010) carried out field experiments on concrete
piles to investigate the nonlinear frequency-
amplitude characteristic of soil-pile system.
The literature review reveals that the mechanism
involved in soil-pile separation under dynamic
loading is very complex. It is found that the
prediction of weak zone parameters of pile under
dynamic loading were the basic parameters to
predict the nonlinear response of soil-pile system
which has not been studied in details so far. Hence
in the present study, dynamic tests are performed
on single pile and analytical technique based on
Novaks continuum approach is used to predict the
dynamic response of soil-pile system. The weak
zone parameters an d soil-pile separation of single
pile under different eccentric moment were also
investigated in this study.
SITE CHARACTERIZATION
The test site was located in between Block II and
III at Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New
Delhi, India. In this location, small scale pile was
installed in the natural soil deposit. Both in situ and
laboratory tests were performed to characterize the
properties of the site soils. Laboratory tests were
conducted on disturbed and undisturbed samples
collected from the borehole at an interval of 1 m.

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S. S.Choudhary & B. Manna
The subsurface investigation indicated that the site
at the location of the test pile consists of a silty
clay crust. Standard penetration tests (SPT) were
carried out at the site to determine the N-value at
different depths. The variation of different soil
layers and field SPT-N values over the depth is
shown in Fig. 1.
Fig. 1 Variation of soil profile of different soil
layers and SPT values at different depths
PILE DESCRIPTION AND INSTALLATION
The hollow close ended steel pile of outer diameter
of (d) 0.114 m and thickness (t) of 0.002 m was
used for the experimental investigation. In this
field study, single pile (length, l = 3 m) was driven
into the ground. Initially, auger boring had been
done with 0.1 m auger bit in order to reduce the
resistance during pile driving. Then pile was driven
into the ground using a 65 Kg drop hammer with
around 0.3 m drop height. A tripod stand was used
to hold the pile in perfect position during pile
driving. A steel plate of dimension 0.9 m 0.9 m
0.037 m was used as a pile cap which was rigidly
connected with the pile.
VERTICAL VIBRATION TEST
Forced vibration tests were conducted on single
pile for different eccentric moments. A Lazan type
mechanical oscillator with two counter rotating
shafts was used to produce the harmonic exciting
force. Initially the mass on each shaft is balanced
when angle is zero. When angle is set to a
value, mass on the shaft become eccentric and
value of me together is given by:
2.59 sin(2)
. = . = N. sec 2 (1)
The dynamic force (P) in Newton corresponding to
this at any frequency can be expressed as:
2.59 sin(2) 2
= . . 2 = . N (2)
Where W and m are the weight and mass of
eccentric rotating part in oscillator, respectively, e
is the eccentric distance of the rotating masses, g is
the acceleration due to gravity and is the circular
frequency of vibration. The magnitude of the
exciting force (P) can be changed by adjusting the
angle of the eccentric mass (). Tests were
conducted for four different eccentric moments
(W. e = 0.657, 1.072, 1.455, and 1.794 Nm) with
the static load (Ws) of 10 kN. The dynamic test
setup is shown in Fig. 2.
Fig. 2 Experimental setup of vertical vibration test
Mild steel plates (0.5 m 0.5 m 0.022 m) were
place on the pile cap to provide desired static
weight. The mild steel plates and oscillator were
tightly connected with the pile cap by four rods so
that it acts as a single unit. The accelerometer was
attached vertically on the top of the plate over the
centre of the pile cap. The oscillator was run
slowly through a motor using speed control unit.
The time-acceleration response was measured
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 Prediction of Nonlinear Characteristics of Hollow Steel Single Pile under Vertical Vibrations

during the dynamic test. The vertical displacements performance of pile in terms of resonant
were determined for different frequencies and frequencies and amplitudes.
finally the frequency-amplitude curves for vertical
vibration were obtained. The typical frequency-
amplitude response of single pile is shown in
Fig. 3.

THEORETICAL ANALYSIS
The continuum approaches proposed by Novak and
Aboul-Ella (1978a, b) was adopted to investigate
the performance of pile under harmonic vibrations.
The variation of amplitude, stiffness and damping
of the soil-pile system with the frequencies are
determined by the continuum method. The
theoretical analysis was performed by continuum
approach which is available as a computer software
package named DYNA5 (Novak et al, 1999). To
predict the nonlinear response of pile, the nonlinear
parameters like modulus reduction factor (Gm/G), Fig. 3 Comparison between the response curves
weak zone soil damping (Dm), thickness ratio obtained from experiment and continuum approach
(tm/R) and most importantly separation length were
incorporated in the Novak's continuum approach Dynamic Stiffness and damping
analysis. It was considered that 50 % of weak zone The continuum models have been used for single
soil mass was added to the pile for all excitation pile to generate the variation of stiffness and
intensities. The separation between the pile and soil damping of the soil-pile system with frequency.
is implemented by considering Gm/G = 0 in the The variation of stiffness and damping with
topmost soil. The separations between pile and soil frequency are shown in Figs. 4a and 4b
were varies from 1.6d (= 0.18 m) to 1.9d (= 0.22 respectively.
m). The soil parameters in the weak boundary zone
were obtained by a trial-and-error technique to
achieve a reasonable match between the calculated
and measured response curves.

THEORY VERSUS EXPERIMENTS

Typical comparison curve obtained from the tests
and analysis is shown in Fig. 3. It is found from the
comparison curves that the theoretical resonant
frequencies and amplitudes are reasonably close
with the dynamic test results. It is also observed
from the response curves that resonant frequencies
were decreased with the increase of excitation
intensity and also the amplitudes were not exactly
proportional to the excitation intensity due to the
nonlinear characteristics of soil-pile system.
From the results, it can be concluded that it is
necessary to incorporate the weak boundary zone
parameter and pile-soil separation in the Novaks
model to better match the real vertical vibration Fig. 4a Variation of stiffness with frequency

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S. S.Choudhary & B. Manna
Fig. 4b Variation of damping coefficient with
frequency
It is observed from Fig. 4a that the stiffness value
is increased with the decrement of eccentric
moments. This may occur due to the weak bonding
or separation between soil and pile. Due to
separation, it is noticed that the stiffness is not
sensitive to frequency changes especially at low
frequencies. However, the damping coefficient of
the piles increases rapidly as the frequency
approaches zero (Fig. 4b) due to the conversion of
soil material damping to the frequency-dependent
equivalent viscous damping coefficient.
CONCLUSIONS
The dynamic behaviour of hollow steel single pile
was investigated by dynamic testing and Novaks
continuum approach. The experimental results
were used to verify the applicability of the
continuum approach and also for the prediction of
stiffness and damping of steel single pile. The
theoretical analysis based on the nonlinear
approach provided a reasonable estimation of
frequency-amplitude response curves under
vertical vibration. Such agreement was achieved by
considering weak boundary zone around the pile
and the soil pile separation length. The predicted
separations lengths are varies from 1.6d (= 0.18 m)
to 1.9d (= 0.22 m) for eccentric moment of 0.657
Nm and 1.794 Nm respectively.
REFERENCES
1. Blaney, G.W., Muster, G.L., and O'Neill, M.W.
(1987), Vertical vibration test of a full-scale
pile group, Geotechnical Special Publication
No. 11. ASCE, 11, 149165.
2. El Marsafawi, H., Han, Y.C., and Novak, M.
(1992), Dynamic experiments on two pile
groups, Journal of Geotechnical Engineering,
118(4): 576592.
3. Manna, B., and Baidya, D. K. (2010). Dynamic
nonlinear response of pile foundations under
vertical vibration, Soil Dyn. and Earthq. Eng.,
30 (6): 456-469
4. Nogami, T., and Novak, M. (1976), Soil-pile
interaction in vertical vibration, International
Earthquake Engineering and Structural
Dynamics, 4(3), 277-293.
5. Novak, M. (1974), Dynamic stiffness and
damping of piles, Canadian Geotechnical
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6. Novak, M., and Aboul-Ella, F. (1978a),
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O. (1999), DYNA 5 - a Computer program for
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Stiffness constants of single piles, Journal of
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