Torsional dynamic response of a large-diameter pipe pile in viscoelastic saturated soil

An analytical solution is developed in this paper to investigate the dynamic response of a large-diameter end-bearing pipe pile subjected to torsional loading in viscoelastic saturated soil. The wave propagation in saturated soil and pile are simulated by Biot's two-phased linear theory and one-dimensional elastic theory, respectively. The dynamic equilibrium equations of the outer soil, inner soil, and pile are established. The solutions for the outer and inner soils in frequency domain are obtained by Laplace transform technique and the separation of variables method. Then, the dynamic response of the pile is obtained on the basis of the perfect contacts between the pile and the outer soil as well as the inner soil. The results in this paper are compared with that of a solid pile in elastic saturated soil to verify the validity of the solution. Furthermore, the solution in this paper is compared with the classic plane strain solution to verify the solution further and check the accuracy of the plane strain solution. Numerical results are presented to analyze the vibration characteristics and illustrate the effect of the soil parameters and the geometry size of the pile on the complex impedance and velocity admittance of the pile head. Finally, the displacement of the soil at different depth and frequency is analyzed. Copyright (c) 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.