A fuzzy finite-element method for analysis of laterally loaded pile in multilayer soil with uncertain properties is presented. The finite-element formulation is established using a beam-on-two-parameter foundation model. Uncertainty propagation of the soil parameters to the pile response is evaluated by a perturbation technique. This approach requires a few number of classical finite-element equations to be solved and provides reasonable results. A comparison with vertex method is made in a numerical example. | Volume 36 Number 3 3 2014 Vietnam Journal of Mechanics, VAST, Vol. 36, No. 3 (2014), pp. 173 – 183 FUZZY ANALYSIS OF LATERALLY-LOADED PILE IN LAYERED SOIL Pham Hoang Anh National University of Civil Engineering, Hanoi, Vietnam E-mail: Received March 09, 2014 Abstract. A fuzzy finite-element method for analysis of laterally loaded pile in multilayer soil with uncertain properties is presented. The finite-element formulation is established using a beam-on-two-parameter foundation model. Uncertainty propagation of the soil parameters to the pile response is evaluated by a perturbation technique. This approach requires a few number of classical finite-element equations to be solved and provides reasonable results. A comparison with vertex method is made in a numerical example. Keywords: Fuzzy finite element analysis, laterally-loaded pile, multi-layered soil. 1. INTRODUCTION Piles subjected to lateral loading can be found in many civil engineering structures such as offshore platforms, bridge piers and high-rise buildings. For the design of pile foundations of such structures, special attention needs to be concentrated not only on the bearing capacity but also on the horizontal displacements of the piles under lateral loading conditions. The deterministic analysis of lateral load-displacement behavior of piles is complicated and in general requires a numerical solution procedure (., the finite difference method, finite element method). On the other hand, uncertainty is often present in the input data, especially in geotechnical engineering data. These uncertainties can be accounted for by using probabilistic methods, ., methods proposed in [1–6]. However, very often the input data fall in the category of non-statistical uncertainty. The reasons for this uncertainty may be because the observations made can best be categorized with linguistic variables (., the soil may be described with linguistic variables such as “very soft”, .
