Limiting force profile and laterally loaded rigid piles in sand

In this paper, closed-form solutions were used to analyze the response of eight laterally loaded rigid piles obtained from field test, centrifuge test, and 1g laboratory model tests, allowing the modulus of subgrade reaction and the profile of limiting lateral resistance force per unit length (LFP, pu profile) to be back calculated. The study shows that (1) with a constant modulus of subgrade reaction, a linear increasing LFP and elasto-plastic p ~ y curves, the response of laterally loaded rigid piles can be well predicted in the framework of load transfer approach; (2) the gradient of the LFP is 0.64 ~ 3.0 times that of the Barton LFP; and (3) the gradient of the LFP and modulus of subgrade reaction increases approximately linear with the confining pressure in the model tests.