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Analysis of Piled Raft Foundations

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 Indian Journal of Science Analysis
International Weekly Journal for Science
ISSN 2319 – 7730 EISSN 2319 – 7749
© 2015 Discovery Publication. All Rights Reserved

Analysis of Piled Raft Foundations

Publication History
Received: 9 March 2015
Accepted: 13 April 2015
Published: 20 May 2015

Citation
Jayarajan P, Kouzer KM. Analysis of Piled Raft Foundations. Indian Journal of Science, 2015, 16(51), 51-57

51
Page
 Analysis of Piled Raft Foundations

Jayarajan P Kouzer K.M

Dept. of Civil Engineering Dept. of Civil Engineering
M.Dasan Institute of Technology (M-DIT) Govt. Engineering College
Kozhikode, India Kozhikode, India
puttatt@yahoo.com kouzer@gmail.com

Abstract—In a combined piled raft foundation (CPRF) the have been used to support a variety of critical structures such
performance of the raft in terms ultimate capacity , total and as high-rise buildings [1,2], bridges etc. and are widely
differential settlement is enhanced by the addition of a limited recognized as one of the technically competent and
number of piles strategically located below the raft. The aim of economical foundation system. [3] provides detailed
such a foundation is therefore to reduce the number of piles
guidelines for the design and construction of piled raft
compared with a more conventional piled foundation where the
bearing effect of the pile cap is ignored. The analysis and design foundations.
of piled raft foundations shall take into account the pile-soil-pile The combined piled raft foundation (CPRF) is a
and pile-soil-raft interactions. Presently three-dimensional FEM complicated problem involving various types of interactions
commercial programs such as FLAC-3D, PLAXIS-3D and such as pile-soil, pile-soil-pile, raft-soil and pile-soil raft. Many
ABAQUS are used for detailed analysis of CPRF considering the methods of analyzing piled rafts have been developed, and a
sophisticated interaction between various elements. detailed review of these methods is given in [3]. Commercial
The design engineers of piled raft foundations still employ programs such as FLAC-3D & PLAXIS-3D provides a good
structural analysis programs in which the raft is represented by a means of solving piled raft foundations taking into account the
plate and the piles as springs. The piles are modelled using spring
interaction between various elements. However analysts of
elements with the stiffness computed for a single isolated pile,
ignoring the effects of pile-soil-pile interaction. It is also common these foundations do not have access to these programs which
for the raft to be modelled using Winkler springs ignoring the are generally used in geotechnical offices. The design engineers
effects of raft-soil-pile interaction. Such programs without due of piled raft foundations still employ structural commercial
consideration of the interactions involved in the piled raft system programs such as ETABS, STAAD.Pro and SAP2000 which do
will lead to serious underestimates of settlement and inaccurate not have the capability to model the interactions and arrives at
estimates of raft bending moments and pile loads. inaccurate estimates of foundation settlements, raft bending
The analysis of a CPRF involves the calculation of the relative moments and pile loads.
proportions of load carried by raft and piles and the effect of piles The paper presents detailed procedure for the analysis of
on total and differential settlements. The present paper details the
procedure for the analysis of combined piled raft foundations by
combined piled raft foundations. The analysis of CPRF
means of both simplified methods used in the preliminary analysis involves a preliminary stage to assess the feasibility of using a
stage and finite element analysis used in detailed design. To piled raft and the number of piles to satisfy the design
demonstrate the analysis procedures, an example problem of a requirements. A detailed calculation is then carried out to
CPRF is solved using simplified method such as Poulos- Davis- determine the optimum configuration & number of piles and
Randolph (PDR) method and also by finite element software- also to arrive at the design forces in the raft and piles. To
PLAXIS which provides an effective computational environment demonstrate the analysis procedures, an example problem of a
to model the complicated interactions between various elements piles raft is solved. The preliminary calculations are done using
of foundation. Poulos-Davis-Randolph (PDR) method to arrive at the required
Index Terms—Piled raft, foundations, settlement, soil/pile
number of piles and their arrangement to satisfy the design
interaction, pile group. criteria. A detailed analysis is then performed using the finite
element geotechnical software PLAXIS-3D [4].
I. INTRODUCTION
II. INTERACTIONS IN PILED RAFT FOUNDATIONS
In foundation design, it is common to consider first the use
of shallow foundations such as raft to support structural loads The behaviour of a piled raft foundation is determined by
and then if this is not adequate in terms of load bearing capacity the interactions between the piles, raft and soil. In reality, there
or settlements to proceed for a fully piled foundation. In a piled are two basic interactions, pile–soil–pile interaction and pile–
raft foundation, loads are transferred into the ground both by soil–raft interaction, as shown in Fig. 1. The pile–soil–pile
piles and by the contact pressures below the raft with the piles interaction factor is defined as the ratio of additional
being mainly used as settlement reducers. The use of piled raft displacement of a pile caused by a load on adjacent pile to the
results in a reduction of the number of piles and pile length
52

compared to a conventional pile foundation. In addition there is

a reduction in the forces and stresses within the raft for an
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optimal arrangement of piles. Nowadays piled raft foundations

 Fig. 2. Piled raft representation in PDR method
Fig. 1. Various interactions in a piled raft
The pile-soil-raft interaction factor cp can be estimated as
displacement of the adjacent pile due to the same load. The follows:
pile–soil–raft interaction coefficient is obtained as the ratio of
αcp = 1 − ln /β (4)
additional displacement of raft caused by a single pile to the
displacement of unpiled raft . It shall be noted that in the above
definition for pile-soil-raft interaction coefficient, the applied where rc = average radius of pile cap; (corresponding to an
load for the unpiled raft model shall be equal to the area equal to the raft area divided by number of piles) ; r0 =
transmitted load for the raft in pile raft model. Both these radius of pile; = ln ( ⁄ 0) ;  = Poisson’s ratio of the
interactions depends on various parameters such as pile soil; = {0.25 + [2.5 (1 − ) − 0.25]} ∗ ; = /
spacing to diameter (S/d) ratio, pile length to diameter (L/d) = / ; L = pile length; Esl = soil Young’s modulus
ratio and relative density of soil. at level of pile tip; Esb = soil Young’s modulus of bearing
stratum below pile tip; Esav = average soil Young’s modulus
III. ANALYSIS OF PILED RAFT FOUNDATIONS along pile shaft.
The analysis methods for piled raft foundations can be
broadly classified into a) simplified analysis methods A tri-linear load–settlement curve developed using above
b) rigorous computer methods. Though many methods are equations is shown in Fig. 3.
available in literature [3], only one method is discussed in the
paper under each category of preliminary & detailed analysis as B. Finite Element Method(FEM)–Detailed Analysis
described below.
If the calculations done in the preliminary stage shows that
A. Poulos-Davis-Randolph(PDR)Method–Simplified Method a piled raft is feasible with the likely piling requirements,, a
detailed analysis shall be done to refine the piling requirements
The simplified representation of piled raft as used in this obtained and also to obtain the design forces in piles & raft. [3]
method is shown in Fig. 2. As per this method, the stiffness of provides a detailed review of various computer programs
the piled raft foundation can be estimated as: available to perform detailed analysis of piled raft foundations.
Finite element techniques are popular in the field of
(( ( ∝ )) geotechnical engineering with a variety of computer programs
= (1) (FLAC-3D, PLAXIS-3D, MIDAS GTS) developed to suit
( ∗ )

Where Kpr = stiffness of piled raft; Kp = stiffness of the pile

group; Kr = stiffness of raft alone; cp = raft-soil-pile
interaction factor.
The proportion of the total load carried by the raft is

( )
=X= ( )
(2)

Where Pr = load carried by the raft; Pt = total applied load.

If Pup is the ultimate load capacity of piles in the group,total

load on the foundation at which the pile yiels is given by
53

P1 = Pup/(1 − X) (3) Fig. 3. Simplified load-settlement curve for piled raft

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different purposes. The behaviour of soil is incorporated with
appropriate stress-strain laws as applied to discrete elements.
The finite element method provides a valuable analytical tool
for the analysis and design of piled raft foundations.
IV. EXAMPLE
In the present study the analysis of a piled raft foundation is
illustrated through a square raft of 12mx12m in plan and 0.5m
thickness supported by four different types of pile
configurations as shown in Fig. 4. Pile configuration-1 has four
piles placed in the central area of raft and twelve piles placed
along the edge. In pile configuration-2 four piles placed in the
central area and eight piles along the edge. Pile configuration- 3
has four piles placed in the central area but at a large spacing
and four piles on each corner of the raft. In pile configuration- 4
four piles are placed in the central area only. The applied
superstructure load is 28800 kN equivalent to an applied
uniformly distributed load of 200 kN/m2.The elastic modulus
and Poisson’s ratio of the raft/pile are 30,000 MPa and 0.20
respectively. All piles are of length 15 m and of diameter 0.75
m and the raft thickness is kept 0.50m.
The soil profile used in the analysis consists of a uniform
soil deposit of 20m deep supported by a rock stratum. The
summary of soil properties is presented in Table.1.The main
objective of the analysis to assess the number of piles and their
location to achieve the desired performance criteria.

A. Simplified Analysis

The method based on the solutions of Randolph (1994) and

Poulos (2001) is used. In this approach, the stiffness of the raft
and pile group are first calculated to compute the stiffness of
piled raft and to obtain its load-settlement response. The
stiffness of raft is computed from elastic theory, assuming the
raft to be an equivalent circular footing and considering the
centre of flexible raft. A detailed description of various
methods for settlement computation of shallow & deep
foundations can be found in [5,6]. The stiffness of single piles
was computed from the closed form approximate solutions of
Randolph and Wroth (1978). The group settlement ratio used
for computing the pile group stiffness was approximated by
Rs=n0.5 ,where n=number of piles in the group. The capacity of
pile group can be obtained from various efficiency formula
available in literature and [7] provides a brief review of
methods for computation of pile group efficiency. The
calculations for different pile configurations of piled raft are
performed in a mathematical program MATHCAD.

The typical load- settlement response obtained through this

method for pile configuration-1 is given in Fig. 5. The
settlement corresponding to the working load of 28800 kN is
calculated to be 64.30 mm. The settlement calculated shall be
basis of feasibility of piled raft foundation to meet the design
54

Fig. 4. Pile configurations used in the example

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 criteria under working loads.

Fig. 5. Load-settlement response for pile configuration – 1

Table 1. Summary of soil properties

Thickness (m) 5
3
Unit Weight (kN/m ) 18

Drained Cohesion (kN/m ) 2

6.5 Fig. 7. Distribution of vertical displacement for pile configuration-1

Friction angle (deg) 35 The load settlement curve of piled raft obtained for different
Young’s Modulus (MN/m ) 2
20 pile configurations is shown in Fig. 8. The normalized
load indicates loads normalized with respect to the applied load
Poisson’s ratio 0.30
of 28.8 MN. Figure 9 shows a comparison between the load-
settlement response of pile configuration-1 computed by both
B. Finite Element Method(FEM)–Detailed Analysis simplified method (PDR Method) and detailed FEM analysis by
PLAXIS-3D. It shall be noted that the load-settlement curve
To have better understanding of load sharing between the obtained by PDR method is plotted only up to the applied load
raft and pile group of piled raft, three dimensional finite level of 28.8 MN for easy comparison. The variation of piled
element analysis was carried out using PLAXIS-3D raft settlement with number of piles is plotted in Fig. 10.
geotechnical software. Only quarter model of the piled raft was
analyzed taking advantage of the symmetry (Fig. 6). Mohr- From Fig. 8 and 10, it is clear that the settlement of piled
coulomb material model was used for the soil .The soil model raft decreases with increasing number of piles. The addition of
was built using 10- node tetrahedral elements .The piled raft even a relatively small number of piles can lead to a
was modeled using plate elements and the piles by beam considerable reduction in the maximum settlement of the
elements. The boundaries of the model were set at a distance of foundation. However, increasing the number of piles does not
1.5B (where B is raft width) measured from the edge of the raft. always produce the best foundation performance, and there is
an upper limit to the number of piles, beyond which very little
additional benefit is obtained. Fig. 9 shows that the settlement

Fig. 6. Finite element mesh of piled raft.

Fig. 8. Load settlement curve different pile configurations
As the main objective of the study was to use the piles as
55

settlement reducers, the load- settlement behaviour of the piled

raft was obtained for various configuration & nos. of piles. The
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distribution of vertical displacement obtained for pile

configuration-1 is shown in the Fig. 7.
 Fig. 10. Distribution of bending moment (M11) in the raft for pile
configuration-1

predictions by the PDR method agree very well with results

obtained from finite element program PLAXIS-3D. Hence PDR
method can be effectively used in the preliminary analysis of
piled raft foundations to assess the feasibility.

The variation of percentage load taken by the piles with the

number of piles is given in Fig. 11. It is found that the
percentage of load carried by the piles increases with increasing
pile numbers, but for more than about 16 piles the rate of
increase is small. Fig. 11. Distribution of bending moment (M22) in the raft for pile
configuration-1
The distribution of bending moments in the raft shown in
Fig. 12&13 indicates a significant increase in moments at the presence of piles introduces significant negative moments at the
location of piles. In cases where no piles are provided, the raft top side of raft around the pile locations.
bends with curvatures in two directions and the bending
moment develops tension only on underside of the raft. The V. CONCLUSIONS
Combined piled raft foundations provide a skillful
geotechnical concept for the design of foundations. It represents
an economical foundation system with optimum number of
piles placed at strategic locations below the raft to meet various
design criteria such as ultimate load and settlement. An
economic solution meeting a specified design criterion can be
achieved only after a number of trials performed through
simplified methods such as PDR method which is further
refined through detailed compute programs based on finite
element method.

The paper demonstrates the PDR method for preliminary

design and the finite element method for detailed analysis of
Fig. 9. Effect of pile numbers on the percentage load by piles piled raft foundations. The parametrical study of piled raft is
56

performed through PLAXIS-3D software by considering four

different pile configurations. The load-settlement response
Page

obtained through PDR method agrees very well with the

response calculated through PLAXIS software and hence it can [2] H.G.Poulos, J.C.Small and H.Chow, “Piled raft foundations for
be used effectively during preliminary study to arrive at an tall buildings,” Geotechnical engineering journal of the
optimum pile arrangement required for detailed analysis. It is SEAGS&AGSSEA, Vol.42 , No.2.
found that the addition of even a small number of piles reduces [3] H.G.Poulos, “Methods of analysis of piled raft foundations,”
the settlement. Further the percentage of loads shared by piles International society of soil mechanics and geotechnical
increases with increase in number of piles provided below the engineering.
raft. However there is an upper limit to the number of piles [4] Plaxis bv.2001. Plaxis 3D Version 2010, “Reference manual,”
beyond which very little additional benefit is obtained for both Delft, The Netherlands.
the settlement and capacity of piled raft. The addition of piles [5] Joseph E.Bowles, “Foundation analysis and design,” Fifth
also causes a significant increase in the bending moments in the edition,The Mc-Graw-Hill Companies,Inc.
raft especially at pile locations. [6] Shamsher Prakash and Hari D.Sharma, “Pile foundations in
engineering practice,”. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
REFERENCES [7] Sayed M. Sayed and Reda M. Bakeer (1992), “Efficiency
[1] H.G.Poulos and Grahame Bunce, “Foundation design for the formula for pile groups,” Journal of Geotechnical engineering,
Burj Dubai-the world’s tallest building,” 6th international Vol.118,No.2.
conference on case histories in Geotechnical engineering,
Arlington,VA.

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