Finite Element Modelling of Frozen Soil- Pile Interaction

ABSTRACT: Numerical simulation of soil-pile interaction poses challenges pertaining to the accurate modelling of the interface. The problem is more relevant to piles in frozen soils where the bearing capacity of the pile relies mostly on the cohesive strength of the adfreeze bonds between frozen soil and pile surface. This paper describes an interface model that used concurrent damage frictional mechanisms to capture the brittle response of the adfreeze bonds. The model is implemented into an FEM solver (ABAQUS). Comparisons with direct shear test results on such interfaces indicate the accuracy of the model in capturing the temperature and pressure dependency of the peak stresses at the interface. This interface model has also been adopted to carry out finite element simulations of a pull-out experiment carried out in lab. The simulation is shown to successfully predict the stiffness and the maximum tensile force with high accuracy without additional calibrations, which further verifies the performance of the developed interface model.