Investigation of seismic behavior of slope reinforced by anchored pile structures using shaking table tests

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soildyn.2021.106900Get rights and content

Highlights

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    The seismic behavior of a slope reinforced by anchored pile structures was investigated through a large-scale shaking table test.

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    The effect of input ground motion variability on the seismic responses of the model is presented.

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    The seismic performance of slope reinforced by anchored pile is assessed by multiple performance index.

Abstract

An anchored pile structure is a type of retaining structure that is widely used in excavation support systems, water-front structures, slope stabilization, and landslide prevention. This structure has good performance because the anchor can limit the displacement and control the deflection of the pile head. Field observations of the performance of various retaining structures during many recent earthquakes have revealed that these structures behave particularly well. However, the dynamic responses and seismic performance of this type of retaining structure in slope stabilization have not been elucidated. In this study, a large-scale shaking table test was conducted to investigate the seismic behavior of a landslide reinforced by anchored pile structures. The acceleration field, anchor force, bending moment, lateral earth pressure along the pile, and permanent displacement of the slope and pile are presented and discussed to systematically determine the seismic responses, reinforcement, and failure mechanism of this retaining structure. The tests results reveal that a landslide reinforced by anchored pile structures achieved good seismic performance even under strong earthquakes. Additionally, some reasonable measures are proposed to improve the seismic performance of a slope reinforced by anchored pile structures. The results obtained by this study can provide a theoretical basis for the seismic performance assessment and design of anchored pile structures.

Introduction

Retaining structures are widely used to stabilize slopes and embankments, and prevent landslides and debris flow hazards. Post-earthquake survey data and the review of relevant literature have shown that some types of retaining structures for slopes, such as the soil-nailed wall, geosynthetic-reinforced soil retaining wall, anchored frame beam, and anchored pile structures, have satisfactory performance and appear to be inherently capable of providing satisfactory seismic responses during strong ground motions [[1], [2], [3], [4], [5]]. Yazdandoust [6] attributed this behavior to the intrinsic flexibility characteristic of these retaining structures and to various conservative assumptions of existing seismic design methods. Extensive studies were subsequently conducted to investigate the seismic responses, reinforcement mechanism, and failure model of these flexible retaining structures, including numerical methods, analytical methods, and experimental methods.

The anchored pile structure, one kind of flexible retaining structure, has mostly been used in excavation engineering and water-front structures. Recently, the anchored pile structure has been widely used in the prevention and control of large landslides, owing to its advantages of safety, reliability, small disturbance, fast construction, and considerable economic benefit. However, most studies on anchored pile structures are limited to numerical investigation and static conditions. For example, Siller and Frawley [7] used the finite element method to investigate the effect of anchor stiffness, inclination, and spacing on the seismic responses of multi-anchored retaining walls. Degrande et al. [8] proposed a numerical approach for the elastic seismic response analysis of anchored sheet piles. Bilgin [9] investigated the behavior of anchored sheet pile walls constructed by excavation and backfilling through a series of finite element analyses. Cilingir et al. [10] compared the seismic responses of anchored quay walls with dry backfill by conducting centrifuge tests and finite element analyses. Bilgin [11] adopted the limit equilibrium approach and numerical methods to conduct a parametric study on an anchored sheet pile wall, and proposed a new lateral earth pressure coefficient with consideration to the stress concentration around the anchor. Higuchi et al. [12] developed a dual anchored sheet pile wall to improve the seismic performance of existing quay walls, and used a centrifuge experiment and the effective stress method to investigate and validate their seismic behavior. Gazetas et al. [13] investigated the seismic performance of tall anchored steel sheet pile walls in wharves and quays subjected to strong earthquake shaking using different methods, including the pseudo-static limit equilibrium, beam-on-Winkler-foundation model, and numerical finite element analyses. Qu et al. [14] established an analytical model of an anchored sheet pile wall to investigate the seismic responses of an anchor and pile based on the Winkler elastic foundation bean theory. Emarah and Seleem [15] used the finite element method to conduct parametric studies on anchored sheet piles with different backfill types. Tan et al. [16] investigated the behavior of an anchored sheet pile quay wall with a pile-supported platform on the basis of field tests and three-dimensional finite element analysis.

From the above literature review, it can be seen that, on the one hand, most studies on anchored pile structures or their variants are limited to excavation support systems and water-front structures. Therefore, in terms of slope stabilization and landslide prevention, the performance and behavior of these structures have still not been comprehensively investigated. On the other hand, most studies have investigated the behavior of anchored pile structures under static conditions, and carried out analysis using different numerical methods. Owing to the complexity of these structures, their dynamic responses and seismic performance, which are significant for seismic design and retrofitting, have not been elucidated. The shaking table test is one of the most effective measures for investigating the dynamic responses and seismic performance of earth structures. Many shaking table tests have been carried out to investigate the seismic behavior of various types of retaining structures [[17], [18], [19], [20], [21], [22]].

In this study, several large-scale shaking table tests were carried out to investigate the seismic behavior of a slope reinforced by anchored pile structures. To identify the seismic responses and the reinforcement and failure mechanism of this retaining structure, the acceleration field results, anchor force, bending moment, and lateral earth pressure along the pile are systematically described and discussed in this paper.

Section snippets

Test facility

The shaking table tests were carried out in the State Key Laboratory of Disaster Prevention in Civil Engineering at Tongji University. The system was hydraulically driven and controlled by a computer. Various performance parameters of the shaking table test system are listed in Table 1.

The model was built in a rectangular rigid model box bolted to the shaking table with the internal dimensions of 3.4 m × 1 m × 1.6 m (length × width × height). Several steel bars were welded to the bottom of the

Dynamic characteristics of model

The dynamic characteristics of the model (for example, the fundamental frequency) are important factors that affect the seismic response of system. To better describe the dynamic characteristics of the model, the results of this part are presented at the level of the model. Fig. 5 shows the seismic response and corresponding Fourier spectrum recorded at the top of the slope (A13) under the excitation of white noise. As can be seen, the fundamental frequency of the proposed model is 33.89 Hz. By

Discussion

By comparing the PHA from four different waves with same input intensity in Fig. 7, it can be found that the regularity of effect of different waves on the PHA is obvious (Wolong > Northridge > Kobe > ChiTCU). It might because the predominant frequency of Wolong is larger and close to the fundamental frequency of the slope model, while ChiTCU has the lowest predominant frequency, which prove the predominant frequency might has much more influence on the seismic responses of slope even though

Conclusions

Shaking table tests were performed to investigate the seismic behavior of a slope reinforced by an anchored pile structure under a series of ground motions with different intensities and spectral characteristics. The seismic responses of the acceleration inside the slope, the dynamic earth pressure behind the pile, the dynamic bending moment along the pile, and the permanent displacement of the slope crest and pile were described to systematically elucidate the seismic behavior of this type of

Author statement

Hongqiang Hu: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Investigation, Writing-Original Draft, Writing-Review & Editing, Visualization, Project administration. Yu Huang: Conceptualization, Resources, Supervision, Project administration, Funding acquisition. Min Xiong: Investigation, Visualization. Liuyuan Zhao: Investigation, Visualization.

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants Nos. 41625011, 51778467, and 41831291) and the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2017YFC1501304).

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