Theme T 1

Geotechnical Issues of Urban Infrastructure

A Study of the Behaviour of Piled Raft Foundations for Tall Buildings
Shukla, S.J. Desai, A.K. Solanki, C.H.
Assistant Professor Associate Professor and Head Associate Professor
e-mail: sdv@amd.svnit.ac.in e-mail: akd@amd.svnit.ac.in e-mail: chs@amd.svnit.ac.in
Department of Applied Mechanics, Sardar Vallabh Bhai National Institute of Technology, Surat
ABSTRACT
India is the developing country and in this age of rapid urbanization, geotechnical issues in construction of tall
buildings are a major problem. These act as strong barriers against the construction of tall buildings in urban
areas. Piled raft foundation is the type of foundation which can be used for the construction of tall buildings safely
and economically. In this paper different parameters of piled raft foundation like length of piles, diameter of the
piles, thickness of rafts, configuration of piles etc. are discussed. It is incorporated with computational modelling
of piled raft foundation. In this study, behaviour of piled raft foundation with thickness of raft and elasticity of soil
is discussed.
Indian Geotechnical Conference

2010, GEOtrendz
December 1618, 2010
IGS Mumbai Chapter & IIT Bombay
1. INTRODUCTION
In the past few decades, there has been an increasing
recognition that the use of pile groups in conjunction with
the raft can lead to considerable economy without
compromising the safety and performance of the foundation.
Such a foundation makes use of both the raft and the piles,
and is referred to here as a pile-enhanced raft or a piled raft.
Thus this is fundamentally different from foundation
application where the piles or shafts are placed beneath the
entire foundation and are assumed to carry all loads. An
additional unique aspect of the piled - raft concept is that
the deep-foundation elements are sometimes designed to
reach their ultimate geotechnical axial compressive capacity
under service loads. The piled-raft concept has also proven
to be an economical way to improve the serviceability of
foundation performance by reducing settlements to
acceptable levels. Although the piled-raft concept has been
most notably applied to new construction involving high-
rise buildings it is also potentially useful for remedial works
and moderate height structures.
2. PARAMETERS TO BE CONSIDERED FOR
STUDYING THE BEHAVIOUR OF PILED RAFT
FOUNDATIONS
Various researchers have examined some characteristics of
behaviour of piled rafts and the effect of following factors
on the behaviour:
(a) The number of piles
(b) Pile spacing
(c) Pile length
(d) Raft thickness
(e) Pile configuration
Detailed discussion of all above parameters is as
follows:
The Number of Piles
Poulos (2008) have said that increasing the number of piles
while generally of benefited does not always produce the
best foundation performance and there is an upper limit to
the number for piles beyond which very little additional
benefit is obtained. Maharaj (2004b) have discussed that it
is found that the addition of even a small number of piles
increases the load-carrying capacity of a raft foundation.
The axial load distribution shows that the piles reach their
ultimate capacity earlier than the raft. Singh and Singh (2008)
have observed that the addition of even a small number of
piles increases the load-carrying capacity of the raft
foundation, and this enhancement effect is greater for higher
soil stiffness. Balasurbamaniam and Oh (2008) have said
that have said that the maximum settlement of the piled rafts
depends on the number of piles. Rabiei (2009) have observed
that maximum bending moment in raft increases, decrease
pile number.
Pile Spacing
Maharaj (2004a) have said that it affects greatly the maximum
settlement, the differential settlement, the bending moment
in the raft, and the load shared by the piles Balasurbamaniam
and Oh (2008), have conclude that Piles spacing plays an
4 S.J. Shukla, A.K. Desai and C.H. Solanki
important role on the performance of piled raft foundation.
The maximum settlement of the piled rafts depends on the
pile spacing.
Pile Length
Maharaj (2004a) have said that the effect of pile of length
even equal to the diameter of the raft is found to reduce
settlement of raft foundation significantly and also to
increase load carrying capacity. Such piles of smaller length
can be used successfully as settlement reducing piles in
piled raft. For the same length of piles below raft, the
improvement is more for smaller raft than that of the larger
raft. Balasurbamaniam and Oh (2008) have said that, to reduce
the maximum settlement of piled raft foundation; optimum
performance is likely to be achieved by increasing the length
of the piles involved. Rabiei (2009) have observed that
Maximum bending moment in raft increases, decrease in pile
length.
Raft Thickness
Poulos (2001) have said that the raft thickness affects
differential settlement and bending moments , but has little
effect on load sharing mechanism Maharaj (2004a) have said
that for same length of pile, the increase in size of raft
increases the load carrying capacity of piled raft foundation
Singh and Singh (2008) have said that for a piled raft,
increasing raft thickness does not always improve the
behavior of the foundation, and the optimum raft thickness
can be determined from a parametric analysis.
Balasurbamaniam and Oh (2008), Rabiei (2009) have said
that the raft thickness affects differential settlement and
bending moments, but has little effect on load sharing or
maximum settlement. It can be concluded that increasing
the raft thickness do not influence the bending moment in
the pile, However it may be beneficial in resisting the
punching shear resulting from the piles and the column
loadings. Rabiei (2009) have said that Central and differential
settlement decreases and maximum bending moment
increases with increase raft thickness.
Pile Configuration
Poulos (2001) have observed that for the control of
differential settlement, optimum performance is likely to
be achieved by strategic location of a relatively small
number of piles, rather than using a larger number of
piles evenly distributed over the raft area or increasing
the raft thickness.
Researchers have observed that performance of a
pied raft foundation can be optimized by selecting
suitable locations for the piles below the raft. In general,
the piles should be concentrated in the most heavily
loaded areas, while the number of piles can be reduced
or even laminated in less heavily loaded areas (Horikoshi
and Radolph 1998)
Fig. 1: Layout used for Analysis
(Maharaj, 2004a)
3. PROBLEM STATEMENT
For the present research work, finite element discretisation
used to analyse the raft. As it is symmetrical about both
axes, only one quarter of the raft has been considered in the
analysis. For that the problem from Maharaj (2004a) is used.
Details of the reference problem and the present work
are given in the following table:
Table 1: Parameters Used For Present Work
Thickness of the raft: m 0.5, 1.0, 2.0, 4.0
Modulus of raft Er
and Ep: kN / m
2

210
7

Poisons ratiofor raft
r
& pile
p
0.3
Soil modulus,Es: kN/m
2

25000, 50000,
100000
Poisons ratio of soil,
s
0.45
Angle of friction, : degrees 0
Dilatancy angle, : degrees 0
Analysis of Raft with 16 Piles
A raft 16 m 16 m with 0.4 m 0.4 m piles 12 m long has been
analysed in order to study the effect of raft thickness and
soil modulus on the load settlement behaviour of a piled
raft foundation.
4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
Figure 2 show the effect of raft thickness on the load
(uniformly distributed load, UDL) behaviour of the raft for
soil modulus. It can be seen that, in soft clay, the load
settlement curves are almost the same for all three values of
thickness. This is due to the soilstructure interaction effect,
as a result of which even a thin raft in soft soil shows rigid
behaviour.
A Study of the Behaviour of Piled Raft Foundations for Tall Buildings 5
Fig. 2: Load settlement Curve for an Only Raft
Es = 50000 kN/ m
2
Figures 3-5 show the effect of raft thickness and soil
modulus on the loadsettlement curve of the piled raft
foundation. In soft clay the uniformly distributed load
settlement curves are almost the same for all three values of
thickness. This is due to the soilstructure interaction effect,
as a result of which even a thin raft with piles 12 m long
show rigid behaviour. Figs. 4 and 5 shows that the load
settlement curves become almost the same when the raft
thickness reaches 2 m. This is because the behaviour of a
raft in soil with a high modulus becomes flexible, and hence
the thickness has to be increased for the raft to have rigid
behaviour.
Fig. 3: Load Settlement Curve for Piled Raft Foundations
Es = 5000 kN/m
2
Fig. 4: Load Settlement Curve for Piled Raft Foundations
Es = 50000 kN/m
2
Fig. 5: Load Settlement Curve for Piled Raft Foundations
Es = 100000 kN/m
2
5. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper the authors have tried to study the effect of
SSI on linear behavior of the raft foundation and it is
compared with behavior of piled raft foundation. It has been
observed that piled raft foundation concept has significant
advantages in comparison to conventional foundation for
some soft clay for high rise buildings. In comparison to
shallow (raft) foundations, piled rafts reduce effectively the
settlements, the differential settlements and the bending
moment proportionally in tall buildings. To reduce the
differential settlement and moment the piles should be place
strategically using some trial and error or using parametric
study. In more the soil structure interaction of piled raft
foundation also play a vital role in the behaviour of tall
building resting on piled raft foundation and The mat alone
is certainly affected by the presence of the piles because
the foundation is much stiffer than with the soil alone. The
piles alone are affected by the earth pressure from the raft
because the increased lateral stresses on the piles affect the
capacity in side resistance. The problem can be solved by
use of the finite-element method where appropriate shell
elements or solid elements can be
used for modeling the raft. Beam elements can be used for
modeling piles. The soil around the piled raft system can be
conveniently modeled as solid elements. Considering each
of these foundation elements separately leads to the
conclusion that consideration of SSI is inevitable.
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