Effects of Soil Nonlinearity on the Seismic Behavior of Pile Foundations Reinforced with Micropiles

Abstract

Seismic retrofitting of existing bridges has been in practice for years to meet the stringent seismic requirements set forward by revised design codes. For retrofitting, however, bridge piers are often prioritized while less attention is given to the bridge foundations, which are equally prone to damage under seismic loadings. The current work presents a series of experimental studies in assessing the performance of 2 × 2 pile groups reinforced with micropiles in terms of head-level stiffness and damping under low-to-high levels of static and dynamic loadings, encompassing the influence of loading-induced soil nonlinearity. Practical micropiles inclinations of 0°, 5°, and 10° with respect to the vertical are studied. Experimental results reveal that the head-level stiffnesses of pile groups reinforced with micropiles, contrary to the general expectations, become smaller than the pile group without micropiles at higher levels of applied loading. To elucidate the governing mechanism for such experimentally obtained results, three-dimensional nonlinear finite-element analyses were carried out. Results from the numerical analyses support the experimental results, suggesting that the presence of micropiles may not always increase the head-level stiffness of soil–foundation systems, particularly at higher levels of applied loading where the soil nonlinearity generated at the vicinity of piles and micropiles governs the overall head-level stiffnesses.