Optimum design of piles with pre-hole filled with high-damping material: Experimental tests and analytical modeling

The piles represent the most vulnerable structural components in Integral Abutment Bridge (IAB). They must adsorb the thermal deformation and the seismic loading transferred from the superstructure to the substructure. The use of pre-holes filled with high-damping material represents a possible solution for enhancing the dissipative performance of reinforced concrete (RC) piles in IABs. This paper presents the experimental tests of four RC pile specimens backfilled with different damping material to assess their effect on the soil-structure hysteretic response. The authors developed a physical hysteresis model of the soil-pile interaction to assess the optimum length of the damping pre-hole. Firstly, the model is calibrated to the experimental tests. Then the authors extrapolated the hysteresis models to full-scale specimens to estimate their optimum design in practical applications.