Buckling of piles may become a severe issue for bridges when scour increasingly erodes away soils around the pile foundation, exposing unsupported lengths above the ground surface. A p-y based approach for buckling analysis was developed to consider buckling behavior of piles due to scour. The procedure utilized multilinear spring stiffnesses to approximately represent p-y curves at different depths. The approximated spring stiffnesses were incorporated into the structural analysis model, and buckling analyses were conducted. The, p-y based approach for buckling analysis was verified by laboratory tests presented in the literature. Buckling of axially loaded piles due to scour was investigated based on the p-y based approach. The results showed that multilinear soil stiffness may be successfully used to represent the p-y curve as a result of considerable agreement of deflections of piles calculated based on the multilinear springs and p-y curves. The calculated buckling load based on p-y approach generally compared well with the measured results. Scour significantly reduced the buckling capacity of piles. Effects of sand density and fixity of pile head were also considered for buckling analysis of piles at different scour depth.
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