Abstract
Reinforced concrete (RC) Pile cap, a thick reinforced concrete block, is constructed to provide a connection between a structure and multiple single piles. In the existing design methods, the behavior of RC pile cap is usually considered as a rigid body and resulting forces or reactions on piles are assumed equal. However, in actual conditions, there is a possibility of bending of pile cap and un-equal reactions or forces on piles. This study represents a detailed finite element analysis of RC eight-pile cap by using a computer program ATENA. ATENA serve as rational tools to explain the behavior of RC structures. Research parameters included different types of loading conditions, analysis types such as linear and non-linear, support conditions, length of pile, strength of concrete and thickness of pile cap. The finite element analysis results indicate that the behavior of RC pile cap is not a rigid body and resulting forces or reactions are unequal. Also, it was observed that, support conditions, analysis type and thickness of RC pile cap had a significant effect on the global behavior of RC pile caps.
Highlights
Reinforced concrete pile cap is defined as a thick block of RC concrete which is constructed to develop a connection between the column or pier and single or multiple piles
In case of pin support, the behavior of RC pile cap P5 is similar to the pile cap P6, finite element analysis reactions are close to the calculations
Three additional finite element models i.e., P14, P15 and P16 were developed in which size of column or pier was reduced by 25%, 50% and 75%, respectively, to investigate the effect of size of column on the tensile stresses of longitudinal steel bars located at the tension zone of RC pile cap
Summary
Reinforced concrete pile cap is defined as a thick block of RC concrete which is constructed to develop a connection between the column or pier and single or multiple piles. Adebar et al 1990 performed an experimental study on deep RC pile caps to find out the suitability of ACI building code procedures for the shear design of pile caps and strut-and-tie models. The effect of longitudinal reinforcement on the shear strength of RC pile caps was studied by Blévot and Frémy 1967; Clarke 1973; Suzuki and Otsuki 2002 ; Suzuki et al 1998 and Suzuki K et al, 2000 These studies did not support the research findings of Sabnis and Gogate 1984. In addition to the experimental investigation on RC pile caps, extensive research efforts have been published in which structural behavior of RC pile caps is investigated through analytical and finite element analysis (Yang et al 2020). It was observed that thickness of RC pile caps and length of pile had a significant effect on the load carrying capacity of RC pile caps
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