Shake Table Modeling of Laterally Loaded Piles in Liquefiable Soils with a Frozen Crust

One of the most important lessons learned from Alaska's two major earthquakes in history is that the lateral spreading of frozen crust overlying on liquefiable soils generates significant lateral forces and have induced wide bridge foundation damages. When the ground crust is frozen, its physical properties including stiffness, shear strength and permeability will change substantially. A shake table test was conducted to study the soil-pile interaction in liquefiable soils with a frozen crust. Cemented sands were used to simulate the frozen crust and have successfully captured the mechanical parameters of frozen soil. With the 2011 Japan Earthquake as the main input motion, the mechanism of frozen soil-pile interaction in liquefiable soils is clarified. A brief discussion of the recorded data is analyzed. It turned out the existence of frozen soil is essential to consider in future seismic design of bridge foundations in cold regions.