Seismic response analysis of pile groups in liquefiable foundations

The seismic analysis of pile foundations in liquefiable ground is an important subject in geotechnical earthquake engineering. A computational model of a 3×5 pile group is established in OpenSees FEM program, and considering soil foundations, the pile group and the upper structure as a system, a unified plastic constitutive model for large post-liquefaction deformation of sand is employed. Special attention is given to the kinematic interaction between piles and soil and distribution of the moment in pile groups. The results show that the soil-pile kinematic interaction has a significant influence on the moment of piles in liquefiable ground. The moment distribution in pile groups indicates that the maximum moment of the corner piles is the largest, and that of the central piles is the smallest. The positions of the maximum moment of different piles are different. The maximum moments in the corner piles and the edge piles are at the interface between the upper layer and the liquefied layer, but the maximum moment in the central piles is at the pile top.