Seismic response of deep foundations and piled structures considering inclined piles

Abstract

The beneficial or detrimental role of foundations including inclined piles re-mains an open question. This paper focuses on two aspects that need further research.One of them is related to the influence of inclined piles on the kinematic interaction factorsof deep foundations. The other is the influence of the rake angle onthe seismic response ofthe superstructure. Kinematic interaction factors corresponding to inclined single piles,and square 2 by 2 and 3 by 3 pile groups are presented in ready-to-use dimensionlessgraphs for different separation ratios. A significant dependence of the foundation kine-matic response on the rake angle is shown. A reduction of the horizontal displacementsis observed when inclining piles in the direction of the excitation. The response of thesuperstructure is also addressed in this paper through a procedure based on a substruc-turing methodology. It is shown that, in general, the rake angle tends to reduce the baseshear forces induced at the base of non-slender superstructures, while this trend can bereversed for slender structures.