Abstract: As scouring can induce soil loss around pile foundations, it is important to investigate the scouring effect on laterally loaded piles. The strain wedge method is an effective method to predict the p-y curve and to analyze the deformation characteristics of laterally-loaded piles, which can only be applied to the case of horizontal ground surface. An equivalent-strain wedge method considering scouring effect is proposed based on the equivalent depth of the strain wedge above the bottom of scour hole. The validity of the method is confirmed by comparing it with those in the literatures. It is found that the lateral responses of a pile decrease with the increase of scouring depth and scouring width at the bottom of a scour hole, and also with the decrease of scour slope angle. Compared to the simplified method, in which only the ultimate lateral pile resistance is affected by scouring, the present method yields a smaller maximum bending moment on pile. Removing the whole soil layers above the scour bottom would result in a conservative result due to omitting the effect of soil layers located in the range of scouring depth.

Key words: scouring effect, laterally loaded piles, equivalent-strain wedge method, sand, p-y curve