Influence mechanism of vertical-horizontal combined loads on the response of a single pile in sand

Pile foundations are used to support both vertical and horizontal loads in many geotechnical projects, such as the coastal and offshore engineering. The responses of piles under vertical-horizontal combined loading are separately analyzed and then superposed in current design practice. This simplified analysis approach does not take the coupling effect of the combined loads into consideration. The research on this topic is limited and the results reported to date are inconclusive with regard to the influence of vertical loads on the horizontal response of piles. In this paper, a series of centrifuge model tests under different vertical-horizontal combined loading conditions was performed to investigate the influence rules and mechanism of the combined loads on the response of piles in sand. The vertical load is shown to densify the soil near the pile and therefore decrease the horizontal displacement and bending moment of the pile: this is termed the “soil densification effect”. The vertical load induces an additional bending moment of the pile due to the lateral deformation of the pile: this is termed the “P-Δ effect”. The soil densification effect plays a dominant role in the early horizontal loading while the P-Δ effect is strengthened as the horizontal loads increases. These compound effect of these two seemingly opposing effects is a decrease in the bending moment of the pile decrease first then increase as the horizontal load increases. Additional settlement of the pile is caused by horizontal loading and isa positively correlated with the pre-vertical loads.