**3.1 Field observations (case histories)**

This section provides a brief review of case histories. This can help to appropriately understand the phenomena involved and to identify important aspects of pile-soil-interaction behaviour. These case histories are primarily from the past 50 to 60 years, which describes the observed of some of the damaged piled foundations from the literature (see **Table 1**).

Iwasaki [51] reported the results of investigations on seismic damages to highway bridges during major eight earthquakes in Japan (occurred in 1923 to 1983). Their observation described that many of reinforced concrete buildings, highway bridges and other structures sustained considerable damage due to liquefaction of sandy soils (e.g., Showa Bridge 1964, Yuriage Bridge 1978, Shizunai Bridge 1982, Gomyoko Bridge 1983). The Showa bridge collapse has been a case history of interest in many publications and it was as an iconic example of the detrimental effects of liquefaction-induced lateral spreading on the ground. Hamada [2] argued that a more plausible explanation could be offered based on the ground displacements suffered due to liquefaction induced lateral spreading. In this respect, the JRA code [27] tried to formalise this research and presented methods of estimating the loading due to lateral spreading ground on pile foundations. This problem was revisited by Yoshida et al. [52] and they collated a number of eye-witness accounts to establish the timing of the bridge collapse as well as the lateral spreading of the river banks. It was suggested that lateral spreading of the surrounding ground started after the bridge had collapsed. Madabhushi and Bhattacharya [21] reanalysed the bridge and showed that lateral spreading hypothesis could not explain the failure of the bridge. A similar explanation was reported by Kerciku et al. [53]. As a final remark, Bhattacharya et al. [12, 54] and Mohanty et al. [55] suggested that the Showa Bridge could have collapsed because of bending, buckling, and combined action of bending of pile foundations.

The Niigata Family Court House building was a four-storey building constructed on concrete pile foundations. Hamada [2] suggested that one pile suffered relatively modest damage, as it did not penetrate into the deeper, non-liquefied ground. Madabhushi et al. [56] concluded that the laterally spreading ground around the piles caused the observed distress in these piles.

Further example on the probability of identifying collapse mechanisms is the Kandla Port one of the largest ports in India, located in the western state of Gujarat. Following the Bhuj earthquake of 2001, there was some damage to the port facilities [49]. Dash et al. [57] used conventional analysis of a single pile or a pile group to predict collapse. They concluded that the foundation mats over the non-liquefied crust shared a considerable amount of load of the superstructure and resisted the complete collapse of the building.


**191**

**Case history** Building on Higashinada-ku

1995 Kobe

6.9

Prestressed concrete piles

0.4

12

5

Cracks on piles at near the pile head, in the middle and the bottom of the liquefied layer.

Tokimatsu et al. [48]

Harbour Master's building, Kandla

2001 Bhuj

7.7

Reinforced concrete

0.4

25

15

Piles performed poor.

Miaoziping Bridge

**Table 1.**

2008 Wenchuan

7.9 *Summary of case histories on pile foundation performance in past earthquakes (adapted from Bhattacharya et al. [33]).*

Reinforced concrete

—

100

45

One approach bridge span

collapsed.

**Earthquake event**

**Magnitude (ML)**

**Pile type**

**Pile diameter (m)**

**Pile length (m)**

**Pile length in liquefiable soil (m)**

**Pile performance**

**References**

*The Dynamic Behaviour of Pile Foundations in Seismically Liquefiable Soils: Failure…*

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.94936*

Madabhushi et al. [49]

Kawashima

et al., [50]

*Earthquakes - From Tectonics to Buildings*
