Analysis of r.c. single pile lateral response considering the influence of tension stiffening

A Hybrid Boundary Element Method (BEM) - p-y curves approach was developed for the analysis of laterally loaded single piles having free or fixed head restraint conditions. The proposed method includes the non-linear behaviour of the soil by means of p-y curves, able to describe the near field soil response, located in series to an elastic half-space, that represents the far-field soil response. The non-linear response of reinforced concrete (r.c.) pile sections was considered taking also into account the influence of tension stiffening. The hybrid BEM-p-y curves method results in saving computational effort compared to more sophisticated codes like VERSAT-P3D, PLAXIS 3D and FLAC-3D, and can provide reliable results using as input data from a standard site investigation. It is presented in detail the comparison between measured and computed data on a r.c. bored single pile tested in Taiwan. It is shown that the proposed method results are in good agreement with those obtained in situ.