Increased Lateral Abutment Resistance from Gravel Backfills of Limited Width

Lateral pile cap tests were performed on a pile cap with three backfills to evaluate the static and dynamic behavior. One backfill consisted of loose silty sand while the other two consisted of 0.91- and 1.82-m-wide dense gravel zones between the pile cap and the loose silty sand. The 0.91- and 1.82-m-wide dense gravel zones increased the lateral resistance by 75 to 150% and 150 to 225%, respectively, relative to the loose silty sand backfill. Despite being thin relative to the overall shear length, the 0.92- and 1.82-m-wide gravel zones increase lateral resistance to approximately 54 and 78%, respectively, of the resistance that would be provided by a backfill entirely composed of dense gravel. The dynamic stiffness for the pile cap with the gravel zones decreased about 10% after 15 cycles of loading, while the damping ratio remained relatively constant with cycling. Dynamic stiffness increased by about 10 to 40% at higher deflections, while the damping ratio decreased from an initial value of about 0.30 to around 0.26 at higher deflections.