Application of a high-cycle accumulation model to the analysis of soil liquefaction around a vibrating pile toe

High residual pore pressure observed in the vicinity of piles driven in saturated soil indicates that the soil around the pile may be liquefied. In the present paper, the problem of deformation of saturated sand around a vibrating pile is formulated with the use of a high-cycle accumulation model capable of describing a large number of cycles. The problem is solved numerically for locally undrained conditions in spherically symmetric formulation suitable for the lower part of a cylindrical closed-ended pile near the toe. The aim of the study is to calculate the evolution of the liquefaction zone around the pile for a large number of cycles. A parametric study is carried out to show how the growth of the liquefaction zone depends on the pile displacement amplitude, the relative soil density, the effective stress in the far field and the pore fluid compressibility.