Rocking response of a reinforced concrete pile group: insights from monotonic pushover loading centrifuge tests
Rocking response of a reinforced concrete pile group: insights from monotonic pushover loading centrifuge tests
The study presents insights from centrifuge tests of a reinforced concrete 2x2 pile group subjected to monotonic pushover loading. The piles are 1 m in diameter and 15 m in length, founded on dense dry sand. To accurately reproduce the highly nonlinear and axial load dependent behaviour of reinforced concrete, the model piles (scale 1:50) are produced from micro concrete and additively manufactured steel reinforcement. Custom load cells are developed in-house to measure the axial loads, shear forces and bending moments at each pile head. These load cells allow a close monitoring of the complex pile group failure mechanisms as they enable tracking of shear and moment redistributions between the leading and trailing piles of group. The observed trend is attributed to the stiffness contrast between the axially unloaded trailing piles and the additionally loaded leading ones. Furthermore, a comparison with pushover tests employing simpler to produce epoxy-coated hollow-section aluminium model piles highlights the importance of accurately modelling the complexities of reinforced concrete behaviour.
L. Sakellariadis; Athanasios Agalianos; Max Sieber; I. Anastasopoulos
11th International Conference on Physical Modelling in Geotechnics (ICPMG2026)
Session 6: Onshore and offshore foundation systems
https://doi.org/10.53243/ICPMG2026-376