Dynamic impedance of a floating pile embedded in poro-visco-elastic soils subjected to vertical harmonic loads

Based on the theory of porous media, an interaction system of a floating pile and a saturated soil in cylindrical coordinates subjected to vertical harmonic load is presented in this paper. The surrounding soil is separated into two distinct layers. The upper soil layer above the level of pile base is described as a saturated viscoelastic medium and the lower soil layer is idealized as equivalent spring-dashpot elements with complex stiffness. Considering the cylindrically symmetry and the pile-soil compatibility condition of the interaction system, a frequency-domain analytical solution for dynamic impedance of the floating pile embedded in saturated viscoelastic soil is also derived, and reduced to verify it with existing solutions. An extensive parametric analysis has been conducted to reveal the effects of the impedance of the lower soil base, the interaction coefficient and the damping coefficient of the saturated viscoelastic soil layer on the vertical vibration of the pile-soil interaction system. It is shown that the vertical dynamic impedance of the floating pile significantly depends on the real stiffness of the impedance of the lower soil base, but is less sensitive to its dynamic damping variation; the behavior of the pile in poro-visco-elastic soils is totally different with that in single-phase elastic soils due to the existence of pore liquid; the effect of the interaction coefficient of solid and liquid on the pile-soil system is limited.