Influence of Scour on Laterally Loaded Single Piles in Clay

Abstract

Bored pile foundations are commonly used to sustain most long-span bridges and construction projects in deep water. Submerged pile foundations are prone to scour, which poses significant threats to their safe functioning. An analysis using three-dimensional finite element (FE) computational methods was performed to study the impact of scour on the behaviour of laterally loaded bored piles in clay. Initially, the finite element numerical model was developed using Plaxis 2D. The parameters scour depth, scour type, and lateral load magnitude were used, and data on lateral displacement were collected. The numerical modelling reveals that the lateral load capacity can result in significant lateral movement of the bridge piles. The bridge pile's lateral displacement will also continue to increase as the scour depth increases, up to 11.7% for local scour and 14.4% for global scour. Thus, the scour causes the bridge piles to lose stability. Next, a semi-empirical method that can be used to calculate the impact of scour on the lateral capacity of bridge piles is presented. This method can be efficiently and quickly applied to calculate the impacts of scour.