This is the SimCenter Educational Pile Group Tool Version 2.0.3

Please be aware that this software is not intended to be used in any commercial analysis and/or design. All contributors of NHERI SimCenter are free of responsibility and liability resulting from the use of this software. Use of this software is at your own risk.

  1. Credits - Developers
  2. Overview
  3. Technical Background
  4. References

Credits - Developers

Peter Peter Mackenzie-Helnwein
Research Associate Professor
University of Washington, Seattle
https://www.ce.washington.edu/people/faculty/mackenziep

Main developer. Feature design, FEA module, GUI design. Performed most implementation. Coordination between this team.

Tatsu Tatsu Sweet
Student in Civil and Environmental Engineering
University of Washington, Seattle
sweetta@uw.edu

Implementing graphic features; porting to Qwt.

Pedro Pedro Arduino
Professor
University of Washington, Seattle
https://www.ce.washington.edu/people/faculty/arduinop

Tool feature design.

Frank Frank McKenna
Chief Information Officer/Manager OpenSees Ecosystem
University of California, Berkeley
fmckenna@ce.berkeley.edu

GUI and base implementation of version 1.0. Consultant for version 2.0.

Alborz Alborz Ghofrani
Ph.D. student in Civil and Environmental Engineering
University of Washington, Seattle
alborzgh@uw.edu

GUI design; soil modeling; testing.

We, the SimCenter software designers, are asking you to share your suggestions on how to improve this educational tool by reporting issues at https://github.com/NHERI-SimCenter/QtPile. We further appreciate your feedback concerning use cases and potential improvements through our web interface available through the Help->Provide Feedback menu entry.

Overview

The SimCenter Pile Group Tool provides a live interface to study the behavior of a pile or pile group in layered soil. It allows the user to interactively (and nearly instantly) observe the system's response to changes of the following parameters:

Presented results include

Technical background

The soil-structure system is modeled using the OpenSees finite element platform [1].

The pile group is represented as multiple displacement-based elastic beams, connected by a semi-rigid pile cap. The connection between piles and pile cap can be modeled as flexible (hinged) or moment bearing (equal DOF constraint).

Soil-structure interaction is represented by appropriate nonlinear p-y spring (t-z spring) elements for lateral (axial) movement. Spring properties are computed using Hansen's method [2] and recommendations by the American Petroleum Institute (API) [3]. A toe resistance can be added using an isolated T-z spring at the toe of each pile.

The Pile Group Tool constructs a structurally and numerically appropriate finite element mesh, computes spring properties from soil properties, and places spring elements accordingly. The actual simulation employs a Newton-Raphson iterative procedure to solve the governing nonlinear system of equations.

The user can quickly explore the effect of changing pile and soil properties to lateral pile deformation, internal pile moment and shear distributions, overburden stress in the soil, and spring parameters as obtained through Hansen [2] and API [3] procedures. Moreover, the user can easily add and remove piles by the click of a button to observe the effect of a pile group versus a single pile foundation.

References

  1. OpenSees. Home page: http://opensees.berkeley.edu/ (last lookup September 25, 2017)
  2. Brinch Hansen, J. (1961). "The ultimate resistance of rigid piles against transversal forces." Bulletin No. 12, Geoteknisk Institute, Copenhagen, 59.
  3. American Petroleum Institute (API) (1987). Recommended Practice for Planning, Designing and Constructing Fixed Offshore Platforms. API Recommended Practice 2A(RP-2A), Washington D.C, 17th edition.