Field experiments have demonstrated that piles driven into sand can respond to axial cyclic loading in Stable, Unstable or Meta-Stable ways, depending on the combinations of mean and cyclic loads and the number of cycles. An understanding of the three styles of responses is provided by experiments involving a highly instrumented model displacement pile and an array of soil stress sensors installed in fine sand in a pressurised calibration chamber. The different patterns of effective stress developing on and around the shaft are reported, along with the results of static load tests that track the effects on shaft capacity. The interpretation links these observations to the sand's stress–strain behaviour. The interface-shear characteristics, the kinematic yielding, the local densification, the growth of a fractured interface-shear zone and the restrained dilatancy at the pile–soil interface are all found to be important. The model tests are shown to be compatible with the full-scale behaviour and to provide key information for improving the modelling and the design rules.