Lateral Load Testing of a 2 ft. Reinforced Concrete Fixed Head Single Pile

This experiment describes the lateral load test of a single, reinforced concrete pile with a fixed head (rotation restrained) boundary condition. The shaft diameter was 0.6 m (2ft) and extended 7.6m (25ft) into silty clays interspersed with relatively thin layers of silty sands. The pile extended above ground into a RC concrete load application cap. Instrumentation consisted of six types of sensors, including fiber-optic Fiber-Bragg gratings (FBGs), DC LVDT displacement sensors, longitudinal and transverse reinforcement strain gauges, diagonal DC LVDTs to measure shear deformations, inclinometers to measure rotation, pressure transducers and load cells to measure actuator loads, and string potentiometers and long-stroke AC LVDTs to measure displacement at the ground surface. Reverse cyclic lateral loading was applied in displacement control up to complete structural failure. The maximum achieved lateral displacement measured 4 inches. Measure results include the head load deflection relationships, internal pile deformations, curvature, deflection and moment profiles as well as the derivation of p-y relationships.