Study of Soil Stiffness Parameter in Case of Laterally Loaded Free Head Long Pile

In order to predict the behavior of a material the knowledge of forces acting on it and its displacement is necessary. To predict the force and displacement the knowledge of stiffness, which an intrinsic property of a material, is necessary. As soil being an important resource from civil engineering point of view, its evaluation is considered important. Stiffness of the soil in a specific in-situ and loading condition is measured by soil interaction parameter which is the coefficient of modulus of sub-grade reaction, k_h (force/length³). In this paper an attempt has been made to calculate this parameter, for homogeneous and layered sand medium by numerical study with 3D finite element modeling which has been done by PLAXIS-3D Foundation version 2.1 software and followed by finite difference formulations.