Compared to conventional empirical methods to perfrom load displacement analysis, it appears beneficial to utilize a procedure that can explicitly consider the soil-structure interaction in the model development. To that end, this paper utilizes the "t-z" method for load displacement analysis of drilled shafts, which models the soil resistance along the length and at the tip of the drilled shaft as a series of springs. For non-linear soil springs, the governing differential equation that describes the soil-structure interaction may be discretized into a set of algebraic equations based upon finite difference methods. This system of algebraic equations can be solved to determine the load-displacement behavior of the drilled shaft when subjected to compression or pullout. This finite difference technique for analyzing non-linear drilled shaft load-displacement behavior can be beneficial for design of drilled shafts at the service limit state. By combining this technique with the Monte Carlo simulation method probabilistic relationships for drilled shaft design may be obtained. Copyright ASCE 2006.
