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DISCUSSIONS AND CLOSURES

Discussion of Contribution to Piled Raft Foundation Design by Widjojo A. Prakoso and Fred H. Kulhawy
January 2001, Vol. 127, No. 1, pp. 1724.

Luca de Sanctis1 and Gianpiero Russo2


1

PhD, Dept. of Geotechnical Engineering, Univ. Napoli Federico II, Via Claudio 21, 80121 Napoli, Italy. 2 Researcher, Dept. of Geotechnical Engineering, Univ. Napoli Federico II, Via Claudio 21, 80121 Napoli, Italy.

The writers are to be congratulated for their timely analysis of an interesting problem with signicant implication in design. The following comments are offered: 1. The use of plane strain nite elements is not the best possible option for the analysis of piled rafts, as it appears also from Fig. 3 and Table 1 of the original paper. In particular, when an elastoplastic nonlinear analysis is implemented, the stress path followed by a soil element in plane strain and constrained between rows of piles actually, between diaphragm walls is different from that followed by a soil element in a real pile group. This can affect to some unknown extent the results and the conclusions of the paper. As a matter of fact, boundary element methods present signicant advantages and have been extensively and successfully used Buttereld and Banerjee 1971; Poulos 1989; Mandolini and Viggiani 1997; Viggiani 2000. Even threedimensional 3D nite elements are being more and more adopted Arslan et al. 1998; Reul 2000; de Sanctis 2001. 2. Dimensionless average reference displacements predicted by the writers for different pile lengths and for Bg/Br 0.6 Fig. 5 in the original paper are compared in Fig. 1 with those predicted using the code Numerical Analysis of Piled RAft NAPRA Russo 1997, 1998 and with those obtained by a full 3D nite-element analyses via the commercial code ABAQUS. The agreement between the different solutions is very satisfactory. However, one comment and one question about the above results are offered. A simple code like NAPRA provides satisfactory results saving a large amount of time both in the input and in the computational stages. Indeed, each analyzed case required approximately 10 min for the input stage and 20 s to run on a standard personal computer while the full 3D nite-element analysis required almost one week for the input stage and about 3,600 s to run on the same personal computer. As in the practical situation, the absolute value of the displacements are of concern, it could be useful to extend the comparison to these last. In Fig. 2 the average settlement under unit load predicted by NAPRA and by 3D FEM analysis are reported. Could the writers add the results obtained by their analyses in the plot of Fig. 2? 3. The writers claim that two different approaches have evolved to address the question: How to design the piles optimally to control the displacement? The rst focuses mainly on reducing the average displacement, while the second focuses on reducing the differential settlement. Obviously, there are

cases where both average and differential settlements are among the main concern. Russo and Viggiani 1998 and Viggiani 2000 suggest to group piled foundations in two broad categories: small and large piled rafts. Small piled rafts are those in which the bearing capacity of the unpiled raft is not sufcient to carry the total load with a suitable factor of safety. Generally the width B of the raft amounts to a few meters typically 5 m B 15 m and is small in comparison to the length of the piles ( B / L 1). Large piled rafts are those whose bearing capacity is sufcient to carry the applied load with a reasonable factor of safety, so that the addition of piles is essentially intended to reduce settlement. In general, the width of the raft is large in comparison to the length of the piles ( B / L 1). The cases considered by the writers belong to the category of large piled rafts. In these cases, the reduction of average

Fig. 1. Dimensionless average reference settlement calculated with different methods

Fig. 2. Average reference settlement under unit distributed load calculated with different methods

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Fig. 3. Reduction of maximum differential settlement of raft, following addition of piles

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settlement that can be achieved by the addition of piles is relatively small, and the main objective is the reduction of differential settlement Viggiani 2000. The optimum design should consist of matching some requisites at the lowest cost. The writers usually dene optimum design layouts without any reference to the cost. For instance the results reported in the plot of Figs. 5 and 6 are used to build the writers statement that fully piled raft ( B g / B r 1) are more effective in reducing average settlement. In a similar way the results plotted in Figs. 911 are the basis for the second writers statement about optimum layouts for differential settlement control. These statements cannot be correctly deduced by this plot where the lines at constant B g / B r ratio imply a large difference in the total number of piles, hence, a large difference in total cost of the foundation. On this topic, Viggiani 2000 performed a large parametric study based on nonlinear analyses of several foundation layouts. The main aim was to determine the optimum layout for differential settlement control. The width of the raft B was xed and for each of the three values of pile depth L, different values of the spacing s, and of the number of piles n, were investigated. The total length of the piles nL, was chosen as a parameter broadly linked to the cost of the foundation. It was easily found that, at a given total length of the piles, nL and pile depth, L the layouts with s 3 d provided the best solution for differential settlement control. In Fig. 3, the results obtained only for s 3 d are plotted in terms of dimensionless differential settlement ratio piled raft differential settlement, r unpiled raft differential settlement, d diameter of the piles, B width of the raft versus the total length of the piles. A close scrutiny of the results leads to the following conclusions: The addition of piles to the raft is very effective in reducing the differential settlement; The longer the piles, the more effective they are in reducing the differential settlement; and For each value of pile depth, an optimum value of the quantity nL exists, corresponding to the maximum reduction of the differential settlement and to values of B g / B r in the range 0,55 0,65.

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As noted by Viggiani 2000 the optimum design of a piled raft foundation is still a hard task and generalization is, often, out of place. In practice, many factors not considered in the parametric study may affect deeply the optimum design in a real situation. Among these very important factors are usually: 1 the subsoil prole which may affect signicantly the depth of the piles; and 2 the exact loading distribution on the raft which may affect the optimum location of the piles, specially underneath a rather exible large raft.

References
Arslan, U., Katzenbach, R., and Moormann, Chr. 1998. Design and safety concept for piled raft foundations. Proc., 3rd Int. Seminar on Deep Foundations on Bored and Auger Piles, Ghent, Belgium, 439 448. Buttereld, R., and Banerjee, P. K. 1971. The problem of pile grouppile cap interaction. Geotech. Eng., 212, 135157. de Sanctis, L. 2001. Modellazione ed analisi di piastre su pali. PhD thesis, Univ. di Napoli Federico II. Mandolini, A., and Viggiani, C. 1997. Settlement of piled foundation. Rankine Lecture Geotech. Eng., 474, 791 816. Poulos, H. G. 1989. Pile behaviour-theory and application. Geotech. Eng., 396, 365394. Reul, O. 2000. In-situ-Messungen und numerische Studien zum ndungen. PhD Tragerverhalten der Kombinierten Pfahl-Plattengru thesis, Technischen Univ. Darmstadt, Germany. Russo, G. 1997. Developments in the analysis and design of piled rafts. Proc., 2nd Int. Workshop on Prediction and Performance in Geotechnical Engineering, Napoli, 279327. Russo, G. 1998. Numerical analysis of piled rafts. Int. J. Num. Anal. Meth. Geomech., 22, 447 493. Russo, G., and Viggiani C. 1998. Factors controlling soil-structure interaction for piled raft. Proc., Int. Conf. on Soil-Structure Interaction in Urban Civil Engineering, Darmstadt, Germany, 2, 297321. Viggiani, C. 2000. Analysis and design of piled foundations. 1st Arrigo Croce Lecture, Napoli, December 2000.

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Closure to Contribution to Piled Raft Foundation Design by Widjojo A. Prakoso and Fred H. Kulhawy
January 2001, Vol. 127, No. 1, pp. 1724.

Widjojo A. Prakoso, S.M.ASCE,1 and Fred H. Kulhawy, F.ASCE2


1

Staff Engineer, Langan Engineering and Environmental Services, P.C., River Dr. Center 1, Elmwood Park, NJ 07407. E-mail: wprakoso@langan.com 2 Professor, Cornell Univ., School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Hollister Hall, Ithaca, NY 14853-3501. E-mail: fhk1@cornell.edu

The writers thank the Discussers for their interest in our paper. The following are our responses. 1 and 2. The writers obviously are aware of the inherent limitations of plane strain nite-element models, and the rst writer conducted an extensive study Prakoso 1999 to evaluate the extent of these limitations. It should be noted that, because of these limitations, the writers suggest no specic design charts, but propose a general design methodology. The writers provide Fig. 1 for further comparison between plane strain and other models. 3. Different denitions of piled raft foundations may exist, but the writers use consistently the denition stated in the rst paragraph of the paper. In essence, the major design question is how to design the piles optimally to control the displacements, including average displacement. Note that, as shown in the Discussers Figs. 1 and 2, the reduction in the average displacement may be signicant. 4. The methodology presented in the paper was developed for cases in which minimizing both average and differential displacements are the design objectives. The writers believe that the required optimum pile design can only be achieved by considering simultaneously all of the pile design parameters e.g., pile depth ( D ), pile group to raft width ratio ( B g / B r ), pile to raft area ratio ( R area) in the design process, and therefore they suggest that iterations may be necessary Fig. 20 to determine the optimum pile design parameters. Figs. 8 and 13 are examples of the combined effect of B g / B r and R area on the reference and differential displacements. Fully piled rafts are suggested for cases in which minimizing the average displacement is the only design objective, while piled rafts with B g / B r of about 0.5 are suggested for cases in which minimizing differential settlement is the only design objective.

Fig. 1. Comparison between plane strain and other models

Viggianis results essentially support the current results. However, the writers believe that the Discussers statement the longer the piles, the more effective they are in reducing the differential settlement should be considered carefully. The differential displacement for L / B 1 is negative for nL between 1,500 and 5,500 and its absolute value may be greater than that for L / B 0.7. Negative differential displacement is undesirable because, similar to positive differential displacement, not only does it affect the supported structure, it also generates bending moments in the raft, implying additional steel reinforcement may be needed. 5. The writers agree with Viggianis statement that designing a piled raft foundation is a difcult task. However, Fig. 9 suggests that subsoil proles and loading distribution may affect the optimum pile design parameters, but not the general trend of results. In addition, Prakoso and Kulhawy 2002 illustrate the effect of retaining structures on the performance of piled raft foundations.

References
Prakoso, W. A. 1999. Numerical analysis of vertically-loaded and laterally-loaded raft foundations enhanced by deep foundation elements. MS thesis, Cornell Univ., Ithaca, N.Y. Prakoso, W. A., and Kulhawy, F. H. 2002. Retaining structure effect on piled raft foundation performance. Deep Foundations 2002 (GSP116), M. W. ONeill and F. C. Townsend, eds., ASCE, Reston, Va., February, 236 244.

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