Dynamic impedance of pile and caisson foundations

Abstract

The dynamic impedance of a pile or caisson foundation embedded in a homogeneous visco elastic half‐space was evaluated using the hybrid method. The soil‐foundation system is partitioned into a near‐field and a far‐field by choosing a cylindrical interface passing through the soil region very close to the foundation. The near‐field is modeled by the finite element method while the far‐field is characterized by a frequency‐dependent impedance matrix through the continuum approach. From the results presented, it is shown that the proposed method is very effective and can be widely used for parameter studies in engineering applications.