The Port de Port-au-Prince is the largest seaport in Haiti, and is essential to the country's economy. The Haiti earthquake severely damaged the Port, which disrupted the transport of cargoes into Haiti that were vital to the country's emergency response and post-earthquake recovery. Major contributors to this damage were widespread soil liquefaction, the poor performance of batter piles, and the poor pre-earthquake condition of many components of the Port's waterfront structures. Immediately after the earthquake, a U.S. military task force was deployed to the port to perform emergency repairs needed to reestablish cargo throughput. These repairs restored a significant cargo-throughput capacity at this small but vital seaport within weeks after the earthquake.

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Five pile-supported wharf models were dynamically tested in a large-scale geotechnical centrifuge at UC Davis, California. Models representing pile-supported wharf configurations common in the United States were subjected to recorded acceleration time histories. Model variations included single-lift, multi-lift, and cut-slope rock dike configurations with foundation layers of loose liquefiable sand, marine clay, or dense sand, or a combination thereof. In addition, zones of soil were placed to model soil improvement. Structural elements representing pile-supported wharf geometries were placed within the models; some models included all vertical piles, while two of the models included batter piles. In addition, single piles were placed in two of the models and subjected to static cyclic lateral load tests. All models were extensively instrumented with nearly 100 instruments recording accelerations, pore pressures, linear deformations, and pile strains. This paper summarizes the design, construction, and testing of these complex models, and includes a brief summary of the results and recommendations for future modeling.

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