DYNAMIC HORIZONTAL LOAD TESTS ON STEEL PIPE PILES HAVING
DIFFERENT SIZES IN THE SAME CONSTRUCTION SITE AND THEIRANALYSES
Eiji Kojima, Japan Pile Corporation, Tokyo, Japan
Hiromichi Kumagai, Japan Pile Corporation, Tokyo, Japan
Pastsakorn Kitiyodom, Kanazawa University, Kanazawa, Japan
Tatsunori Matsumoto, Kanazawa University, Kanazawa, Japan
Kouichi Tomisawa, Civil Engineering Research Institute of Hokkaido, Hokkaido, Japan

In this research, dynamic and static load tests were performed on
permanent foundation piles which had a pile length of 30 m, 800 mm
in outer diameter and 15 mm in wall thickness. In this site the dynamic
horizontal load test on a smaller test pile, 12 m in length, 500 mm inouter diameter and 12 mm in wall thickness, was also carried out. The
static horizontal load versus horizontal displacement derived from the
dynamic load test conformed well to that measured in the conventional
static horizontal load test of the pile with 800 mm diameter. Then an
attempt was made to predict the horizontal load displacement of thepile with 800 mm diameter based on the results of the dynamic
horizontal load test of the pile with smaller diameter of 500 mm.

INTRODUCTION

In actual construction sites, sometimes pileload tests to failure are not allowed forfoundation piles are not allowed. Moreover,the use of an additional test pile having thesame dimensions as the actual pile is difficultfrom an economical reason and so on. In thatcase, it may be useful to predict the load
displacement of the actual pile from the load
test of a smaller diameter test pile located near
the actual pile.

The design methods of foundation structures
have been changing from allowable stressdesign to limit state design or performancebased design in Japan after the Kobe
Earthquake in 1995. Precise estimation of
deformation of a pile foundation is a vital issue
in the framework of these new design criteria.
The simplest way to obtain the loaddisplacement relationship of a pile is toconduct an in-situ pile load testing. Many
forms of pile load testing are conducted inpractice.

In this work, the static horizontal load test as
well as dynamic horizontal load test was
performed on the permanent foundation piles
which had a pile length of 30 m, 800 mm inouter diameter and 15 mm in wall thickness. In
this site the dynamic horizontal load test on asmaller test pile, 12 m in length, 500 mm inouter diameter and 12 mm in wall thickness,
was also carried out.

For axial compressive pile load test methods,
the dynamic load testing or the rapid load
testing is widely used in Japan because of thefact that these methods are unsusceptible toreaction piles, and require less time and costcompared with the conventional static load test
where reaction piles are employed. Applicationof the dynamic or rapid pile load test tohorizontal pile load test would be very useful,although these test methods have not been
specified in Japan.

In this paper, first the results of static anddynamic horizontal load tests on thepermanent foundation piles are presented andcompared.
Thenthehorizontal
load
displacement of the permanent foundation pileis predicted based on the results of the
dynamic horizontal load test of the smaller
diameter pile. The predicted results arecompared with the measured results, anddiscussions will be made.

In Kitiyodom et al. (2006), the possibility of theuse of dynamic horizontal pile load test as analternative method for the conventional static
horizontal load testing is presented.

700

3,150

5,000

3,000

A bridge was constructed at the Kiusu site for
the Central Hokkaido Connection Road in2005. A pile group foundation was employed
for an abutment of the bridge. A total of 40
steel pipe piles with a centre to centre distanceof 2.2 m and 3.0 m were driven by a hydraulichammer (see Fig. 1).

2,200 2,200

2,200 2,200

PILE LOAD TEST
Test site and test pileH35

2,200 2,200

2,200 2,200

In order to assess the performance of theconstructed piles in the site and to obtain
design parameters for piles in the future, astatic alternating cyclic horizontal load test anda dynamic horizontal load test were carried out
on the constructed foundation piles H35 andH36, respectively. Moreover, with an aim to
predict the horizontal load displacement of theactual pile from the load test of a test pilewhich had smaller sizes than those of theactual pile, dynamic horizontal load test was
conducted on the test pile T01 which was
located 5 m away from the pile H36 as shownin Fig. 1. The specifications of both the test
pile and the actual piles are summarised inTable 1.

H36

2,200

6,000

T01

Unit : mm

3,000

3,000

3,000

Fig. 1. Arrangement of piles at the test site.
Table 1. Specifications of test and actual piles.

Fig. 2 shows the profiles of soil layers and
SPT N-values at Kiusu site. The soil profile atthis site is characterised by thick deposits of
volcanic soils. SPT N-values are typically lessthan 7, except for gravel at depths from 17.5 m
to 21.2 m and volcanic soils at depths from27.5 m to 31 m. No definite bearing stratum
having N-values greaten than 30 can be foundto a depth of 32 m.
Test method and test procedure

Length (m)Embedment length (m)Outer diameter (mm)
Inner diameter (mm)

T01
12.0
11.2
500
476

Cross-sectional area (cm2)184.0Young's modulus (kN/m2)
Bending rigidity (cm2)2.06×108
1.13×105

Shear wave velocity (m/s)
Density (ton/m3)
Mass (ton)

3187
7.8
1.7

H35&H36
30.0
29.2
800
770 *
782 **
369.2 *
223.7 **
2.06×108
5.87×105
3.60×105
3187
7.8
5.9

* Upper part (z < 6 m), ** Lower part (z > 6 m)

SPT N-value

Prior to the dynamic horizontal load tests,
static alternating cyclic horizontal load test was
carried out on the pile H35. Details of the static
alternating cyclic horizontal load test can befound in Tomisawa et al. (2006).

0
0

Fill
Valconic ash
Organic silt

10

20

30

40

50

0

Valconic ash

5

In the dynamic horizontal load test, the pile
was hit horizontally by a hammer mass of 2.14
ton through a coil spring which was attachedto the load cell at the point z = 0.3 m below thepile head as shown in Photo 1 and Fig. 3.

Silty valconic ash

Depth from G.L. (m)10Applied force, horizontal displacements andaccelerations were measured at the samelevel of the hit point with a sampling interval of
15 ms. Details of the loading and measuring
devices are shown in Fig. 3. The measuring
devices and their frequency characteristics arelisted in Table 2.

5

10
Gravel15

20

15

Valconic silt

20

Silty sand25

Sandy silt

25

Silty sand
Sandy silt

30

Silty sand
Sandy silt

30

Silty sandFig. 2. Profiles of soil layers and SPT N-values.

701

Table 2. Frequency characteristics of measuring devices.
Frequency characteristic
DC ~ 300 kHz
0.7 Hz ~ 10.0 kHz
DC ~ 1.7 kHz
DC ~ 20.0 Hz
0.1 Hz ~ 6.0 kHz
DC ~ 10.0 kHz
DC ~ 2.5 kHz
DC ~ 2.5 kHz

axial strain gauge
accelerometerload cell
displacement transducer
axial strain gauge
accelerometerload cell
displacement transducer

Sensor

AmplifierPhoto 1. Loading and measuring devices in the Kiusu site.

300

500

560

Direction

800

Load cell

1050
800

Displacementtransducer

800

560
Accelerometer
Accelerometer & Strain gauges

Unit : mm

Fig. 3. Loading and measuring devices for dynamic horizontal load test.

702

loading duration is about 70 ms. The
measured displacement also increases anddecreases with time having a peak of 3.6 mm
at a time of 68 ms. The peak horizontal
displacement delays 16 ms behind the peakhorizontal load, showing dynamic effects. A
total of eight dynamic load tests were carriedout on the pile H36.

Test results
Fig. 4 shows the relationships between thestatic horizontal load and the horizontal
displacement of the pile H35. The residual
displacement was measured at full recovery ofhorizontal load to 0 in each load step, and theelastic displacement was obtained bysubtracting the residual displacement from thetotal displacement measured at the maximum
load in each load step. The residual
displacement and the corresponding elastic
displacement for at the maximum load in eachload step are also shown in Fig. 4.

Horizontal load (kN)

600

The axial strains measured at different depths
down the pile shaft are shown in Fig 6. It canbe seen from the figure that only the upper
part of the pile (< G.L. -8.2 m) deforms during
the dynamic horizontal load test.
Fig. 7 shows the relationships between the
dynamic horizontal load and the horizontal
displacement. It can be seen from comparison
between Fig. 4 and Fig. 7 that the measured
load displacement relations from the dynamic
load tests are totally different from themeasured static load displacement relations.
Therefore, in order to obtain the static load
displacement relation of the pile from themeasured signals of the dynamic load test,
wave matching analysis of the measured
dynamic signals is needed.

Total
Residual
Elaslic

400
200
0
-200
-400
-600

-20

0

20

0

40

Strain (µ)-40

Horizontal displacement (mm)-100

Dynamic Load (kN)60

Displacement (mm)

4
3
2
1
0
-1

G.L.-1.2m
G.L.-3.2m
G.L.-5.2m
G.L.-8.2m-200

Fig. 4. Static horizontal load vs displacement.

-300
-400
0

40

20

40

60

80 100 120

Time (ms)200Fig. 6. Measured strain at different depths.
0

20

40

60

80 100 120

60Time (ms)

0

20

40

60

Horizontal dynamic load (kN)(a) Measured dynamic load

80 100 120

Time (ms)(b) Measured displacement

Fig. 5. Measured dynamic pile load test signal.

50
40
2

3

4

3

6

5

8

7

1

30
20
10
0

An example of the dynamic test signals of thepile H36 are shown in Fig. 5. The measured
force increases and decreases smoothly withtime, and has a peak of about 50 kN. The

6

0

9

Horizontal displacement (mm)12Fig. 7. Measured dynamic load displacement.

703

ANALYSES OF TEST RESULTS
A computer program KWaveHybrid, developedby Kitiyodom et al. (2006), was used for thewave matching analysis of the dynamic
horizontal load test. The program was also
used to estimate the static load displacement
relationship of the pile using the soil
parameters obtained from wave matching
analysis.

2.75Gs4Gs, kx = ky =
d
πd

(1)

c=

Gs
4.5Gs
, cx = cy =
Vs
Vs

(2)

where Gs and Vs are the shear modulus andthe shear wave velocity of the surrounding soil
respectively, and d is the outer diameter of thepile.

Fig. 8 illustrates the hybrid modelling of thepile and the soil used in KWaveHybrid. The
pile is modeled as beam elements with
masses and the soil is treated as springs anddashpots.

The slider value is equal to the static
maximum shaft resistance in the verticaldirection and is equal to the limit horizontalpressure in the horizontal direction.

Fig. 9 shows the dynamic shaft soil resistancemodel proposed by Randolph and Deeks(1992) for vertical shaft resistance. This model
was incorporated into KWaveHybrid for bothvertical and horizontal resistances at the pile
shaft nodes. The values of the vertical spring,k, the horizontal springs, kx and ky, the verticalradiation damping, c, and the horizontal
radiation damping, cx and cy, per unit shaft
area are approximated by means of Eqs. 1
and 2, based on the work of Novak et al.
(1978).

Fig. 10 shows the dynamic vertical pile baseresistance model. The values of the soil springat the pile base, kb, the damping, cb, and the
lumped soil mass, mb, per unit base area canbe estimated as follows (Randolph and Deeks,1992):
kb =

cb =

kh0
m0

8Gs

π d (1 − ν s )3.4 Gsπ (1 − ν s ) Vs

mb = 16ro ρs

c0

ch0

k0
(Kp)1

c1

(4)

(5)

In the analysis of static pile load test, the static
vertical shaft soil spring, kstatic, is estimated bymeans of Eqs. 6 and 7 following Randolph andWroth (1978).

ch1
(Kp)2

0.1 − ν s4
π (1 − ν s )(3)

in which νs and ρs are the Poisson’s ratio andthe density of the soil, respectively.

kh1
m1

k1

k=

kh2
m2

c2 (Kp)3

k2

k static = (2π / 2.75ξ ) ⋅ k , ξ = ln[5.0(1 − ν s )L / d ] (6)ch2(Kp) nwhere L is the pile embedment length.

khn

mn

The static horizontal shaft soil spring values at
each pile node are estimated based on
Mindlin’s solution (Mindlin, 1936) which issimilar to the solution of the integral equation
method used by Poulos and Davis (1980). The
equations become

cn

kn

chn
cb

cb

kb
mb
Fig. 8. Hybrid modelling of the pile and the soil.

704

x
y
k static= kstatic= ζ E s ∆L(7)

ζ = pd / uEs(8)

pressure, qh, and the soil shear modulus, Gs,
using the measured dynamic load (Fig. 11) as
the force boundary condition at the loading
point, until a good matching between thecalculated
andthemeasuredpile
displacements was obtained. Soil parameters
used in the final matching of the pile H36 arelisted in Table 3. Fig. 12 and Fig. 13 show thedisplacement versus time and load versus
displacement of the pile H36 calculated in the
final matching analysis, compared with themeasured values.

where p is the horizontal distributed force
acting uniformly over the pile element and u isthe corresponding horizontal displacement at
each pile node calculated using the integral
equation method. More details of the analysis
method can be found in Kitiyodom et al.
(2006)
Pile node
Slidermax
τ staticor qhDashpot cv(viscous)

It can be seen that the calculated dynamic pile
displacement overestimated the measured
values after the peak displacement. This isthought to be due to the soil spring model. At
the present, the values of the soil spring in
KWaveHybrid during the loading andunloading states are the same. The values ofthe soil spring during the loading andunloading states should be different due togapping between the pile and the surrounding
soil as mentioned earlier. However, thecalculated displacement matches very wellwith the measured displacement until the peak
displacement.

Soil adjacent to pile

Dashpot c(radiation)

Spring k

Soil far from pile (fixed)

Fig. 9. Vertical and horizontal shaft resistancemodel.

Pile node

Table 3. Soil parameters identified in final
matching of H36.

Dashpot cb

Spring kb
Dashpot cb

Depth (m)0 to 3.6
3.6 to 15.6
> 15.6

Lumpedmass Mb

Dynamic load (kN)

Slider qb

Fig. 10. Vertical base resistance model.
It should be noted here that the unloading andreloading curves measured in the static
alternating cyclic load test (Fig. 4) indicate thatgapping between the pile and the surroundsoil occurs during unloading and reloading
stages. Such gapping has not been
incorporated in KWaveHybrid at present.
Hence, monotonic horizontal loading of thepile is considered in the analysis. Note alsothat the interiors of the pipe piles were almost
filled with soil at the end of driving. However,
the masses of the soil inside the pipe piles
were not taken into account in the analyses.

νs

Gs (kPa)
7692
9231
53846

0.3
0.3
0.3

qh (kPa)
8.1
Elastic range
Elastic range

60
40
20
0

0

20

40

60

80

100 120

Time (ms)Displacement (mm)Fig. 11. Measured dynamic load of H36.

Analysis results of the actual pile H36

Matching analysis was repeated with assumed
values for the maximum shaft horizontal

4
Measured
Calculated

2
0
0

20

40

60

Fig.
12.
Measured
displacement of H36.

705

80

100 120

Time (ms)andcalculated

20

Dynamic load (kN)

10

Fig. 15. Measured force of T01.

0
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0

Dynamic load (kN)

50
40
Measured
Calculated

30

Horizontal displacement (mm)Fig. 13. Measured and calculated loaddisplacement of H36.
600
500

20

40

60

80 100 120

Time (ms)
5
4
3
2
1
0

Measured
Calculated

0

20

40

60

80 100 120

Time (ms)andcalculated

70

300
200

Measured
Calculated
Predicted

100
0

0

Fig.
16.
Measured
displacement of T01.

400

0

10

20

30

40

50

Dynamic load (kN)

Static load (kN)

70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

Displacement(mm)6060Horizontal Displacement (mm)Fig. 14. Measured, calculated and predictedstatic load displacement of H36.
Using the same soil parameters as shown in
Table 3, the static load displacement relationof the pile H36 was estimated using
KWaveHybrid. Fig. 14 shows the comparisonof the calculated static load displacement
relation with the measured value. It can beseen that the calculated result matches wellwith the measured one.

60
50
40

Measured
Calculated

30
20
10
0

0

1

2

3

4

5

Horizontal Displacement (mm)Fig. 17. Measured and calculated loaddisplacement of T01.

600
Analysis results of the test pile T01

Static load (kN)

500
The same analysis procedures as used for thepile H36 were carried out for the test pile T01.
Soil parameters used in the final matching of
the pile T01 are listed in Table 4. The
measured dynamic load versus time is shownin Fig 15. Fig. 16 and Fig. 17 show thedisplacement versus time and load versus
displacement of the pile T01 calculated in the
final matching analysis, compared with themeasured values.

400
300
Measured in
SLT of H36

200

Derived from
DLT of T01

100
0

0

10 20 30 40 50 60 70

Horizontal Displacement (mm)Fig. 18 shows the static horizontal load versus
horizontal displacement of the pile T01 derived
from the dynamic horizontal load test.

Fig. 18. Comparison of static
displacement between H36 and T01.

706

load-

Table 4. Soil parameters identified in final
matching of T01.
νs

Gs (kPa)
7692
9231
53846

0.3
0.3
0.3

50

qh (kPa)
23.0
Elastic range
Elastic range

Dynamic load (kN)

Depth (m)0 to 3.6
3.6 to 15.6
> 15.660

For comparison purpose, the measured static
horizontal load versus horizontal displacementof the pile H36 is also shown in the figure. As
expected, the horizontal stiffness of thesmaller test pile T01 is lower than that of theactual constructed pile H36.

30

Measured
Predicted

20
100
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0

PREDICTION ANALYSIS

Horizontal displacement (mm)In actual construction site, it would be very
useful to estimate the static load displacement
relation of the actual pile from the dynamic
load test of another pile having smaller sizes.
The soil parameters of the pile T01 (Table 4),
which has a smaller size than the pile H36,
were employed to predict the load
displacement relation of H36.

Fig. 20. Measured and calculated loaddisplacement of T01.
CONCLUSIONSIn this paper, the results of alternating cyclic
horizontal load tests and dynamic horizontal
pile load tests on driven open-ended steel pipe
piles constructed for foundations of a bridge
abutment at Kiusu site have been presented
and discussed

Fig. 19 and Fig. 20 show the predicteddisplacement vs time and the predicted
dynamic load displacement relation of H36,
compared with the measured values,
respectively. It can be seen that the predicted
pile displacements considerably underestimate
the measured values.

A good matching between the calculated andmeasured behaviours of the piles during
driving and during static load test was
obtained.

The static load displacement relation of H36
derived from the prediction analysis has been
indicated in Fig. 14. It can be seen that thepredicted result matches well with themeasured one, although good matching forthe dynamic signals was not obtained. Further
study will be needed to use the test pile
having different configurations from the actual
pile for predicting the performance of theactual pile.

Displacement (mm)40

The possibility of the use of dynamic horizontal
pile load test as an alternative method for theconventional static horizontal load testing wasdemonstrated.
REFERENCES

Kitiyodom, P., Matsumoto, T., Kojima, E.,
Kumagai, H. and Tomisawa, K., 2006.
Analysis of static and dynamic horizontal load
tests on steel pipe piles. Proceedings of 10th
International Conference on Piling and Deep
Foundations, Amsterdam (to be published).

4
Measured
Predicted

2

Mindlin, R. D., 1936. Force at a point interior ofa semi-infinite solid. Physics, 7, 195-202.

0

Poulos, H. G. and Davis E. H., 1980. Pile
Foundation Analysis and Design, Wiley, New
York.

0

20

40

60

80 100 120

Time (ms)Fig.
19.
Measured
displacements of H36.

and

Novak, M., Nogami, T. and Aboul-Ella F., 1978.
Dynamic soil reactions for plane strain case.
Journal of Mechanical Engineering ASCE,
104(EM4), 953-959.

predicted

707

Randolph, M. F. and Deeks A. J., 1992.
Dynamic and static soil models for axial pile
response. Proceedings of 4th International
Conference on the Application of Stress-Wave
Theory to Piles, The Hague, 3-14.
Randolph, M. F. and Wroth, C. P., 1978.
Analysis of deformation of vertically loaded
piles. Journal of Geotechnical Engineering
ASCE, 104(12), 1468-1488.
Tomisawa, K., Nishimoto, S., Fukushima, H.,
Saitoh, A., Kojima, E. and Matsumoto, T.,2006. Static alternating cyclic horizontal load
test on a driven steel pipe pile in thefoundation for a highway bridge. Proceedingsof 10th International Conference on Piling andDeep Foundations, Amsterdam (accepted for
publication).

708