Single Piles and Pile Groups Under Lateral Loading

The complexities of designing piles for lateral loads are manifold as there are many forces that are critical to the design of big structures such as bridges, offshore and waterfront structures, and retaining walls. The loads on structures should be supported either horizontally or laterally or in both directions and most structures have in common that they are founded on piles. To create solid foundations, the pile designer is driven towards finding the critical load on a certain structure, either by causing overloaded or by causing too much lateral deflection.