Steel Pipe Pile Subjected to Lateral Loading

A fully-instrumented experiment was conducted to investigate the soil-structure interaction of single short, stiff laterally loaded piles. A hollow steel pipe pile with a diameter of 102 mm, thickness of 6.4 mm, and length of 1.524 m was installed in well-graded sand and subjected to increasing lateral load. The pile and surrounding soil were fully-instrumented using advanced sensors including flexible shape acceleration arrays, thin tactile pressure sheets and in-soil null pressure sensors. The sensors attached to the pile were used to develop the compressive soil-pile interaction pressures and the lateral displacement along the pile length. The tactile sheet pressure sensors provide the soil-pile interaction compressive pressures on the circumference of the pile at a specific depth and along the length of the pile. The measured soil-pile interaction compressive pressures combined with the measured lateral displacement along the pile length were used to develop the soil-pile interaction force-displacement relationships (p-y curves) using direct measurements. In addition, the in-soil null pressure sensor measurements were used to develop the distribution of horizontal stress changes around the pile as the lateral pile displacement increases. When appropriate, the measured results were compared with data and methods available in the literature.