Experimental investigation and FEM simulation of a bridge pier with scoured pile foundation from shaking table tests

This study investigated the seismic performance and soil-structure interaction of scoured bridge pier models with pile foundations by shaking table tests and finite element simulations. The model bridge pier with a pile foundation comprised of a lumped mass representing the superstructure, a steel pier, and a footing supported by a single aluminium pile within dry silica sand. The performance of the structure was discussed for different scoured conditions. Tt is found that the transition of moment demand from pier to pile with increasing exposed length may cause the bridge to failure. A three-dimensional finite element model of the shaking table test was created using the ANSYS program. The soil dynamic property was taken into consideration for the nonlinearity of the soil-pile interface, and an equivalent linear model was used for the soil behaviour. The computational model was validated by the data obtained from the shaking table tests.