Pile Running in Layered Soils

This paper presents a case study on incidents of offshore pile running in layered soils.The study provides a detailed description of the seabed soil data,pile driving records,and field surveillance video observations.Three-dimensional large deformation finite element(LDFE)analyses were conducted to retrospectively analyze the incidents,considering the remoulding of seabed soil and degradation of the pile-soil interface in the LDFE modeling.By comparing the field observations with the LDFE analysis,the mechanism of pile running was discussed,with a focus on investigating the pile penetration resistance in each layer.The study revealed that pile running in layered soils primarily resulted from a significant reduction in pile base resistance when transitioning from a strong layer to an adjacent weak layer.To further investigate the pile running mechanism in layered soils,a parametric study on the strength variation of adjacent soil layers and its influence on pile base resistance was conducted.Lastly,a simplified prediction model of pile base resistance,suitable for assessing the risk of pile running in layered soils,was proposed.