Analysis of the piled raft for three load patterns: A parametric study

Abstract

The piled raft is a geotechnical construction, consisting of the three elements- piles, raft and the soil, that is applied for the foundation of a tall buildings in an increasing number. The piled rafts nowadays are preferred as the foundation to reduce the overall and differential settlements; and also, provides an economical foundation option for circumstances where the performance of the raft alone does not satisfy the design requirements. The finite element analysis of the piled raft foundation is presented in this paper. The numerical procedure is programmed into finite element based software SAFE in order to conduct the parametric study wherein soil modulus and raft thickness is varied for constant pile diameter. The problems of piled raft for three different load patterns as considered in the available literature (Sawant et al. 2012) are analyzed here using SAFE. The results obtained for load pattern- I using SAFE are compared with those obtained by Sawant et al. (2012). The fair agreement is observed in the results which demonstrate the accuracy of the procedure employed in the present investigation. Further, substantial reduction in maximum deflections and moments are found in piled raft as compared to that in raft. The reduction in deflections is observed with increase in raft thickness and soil modulus. The decrease in maximum moments with increase in soil modulus is seen in raft whereas increase in maximum moments is seen in piled raft. The raft thickness and soil modulus affects the response of the type of the foundation considered in the present investigation. .