Development of an Approximate

Nonlinear Analysis of Piled Raft

Foundations

2008.04.02

Myung Jun Song

Ph.D. Candidate
Geotechnical & Geoenvironmental Engineering Lab
Seoul National University
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Contents

Introduction
Approximate Nonlinear Analysis
Modeling
Pile-Soil Interaction
Pile-Soil-Pile Interaction
Raft-Soil-Pile interaction
Evaluations
Comparison with 3D FEM analysis
Conclusions
Further Study
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Design Philosophies of Piled Rafts

Conventional Pile Design Method
Disregard of the capacity of raft
Increase the number of piles or length of piles
Very small allowable settlement

Piled Raft Design Method

Design for fully utilization of pile capacity
Settlement Reducing Pile
Design for the calculation of settlement
Consideration of Complex Soil-Structure
Interaction(Pile-Raft-Soil)
Consideration of the optimal location of piles to
decrease the differential settlement and bending
moment of raft
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Design Philosophies of Piled Rafts

Load settlement curves for piled rafts (Poulos, 1997)

Curve 0 : raft only(settlement excessive)

Increasing number of piles
Curve 1 : raft with piles designed for
conventional safety factor

Curve 2 : raft with piles designed for lower

safety factor

Curve 3 : raft with piles designed for fully

utilization of capacity
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Application of Piled Raft Foundations to Civil Structure

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Modeling Summary
Qp: Pile Load
Qpsi
Q : Point Load
q : Distributed Load
Raft wnet
Shaft Resistance
Iteration
for Qpb
Qs Soil Spring
Qp: Pile Load Compatibility

wnet
w Base Resistance

Raft analysis on the spring Pile group behavior analysis

Linear elastic spring for raft-soil interaction

Nonlinear behavior of pile
Applicable to multi-layered ground
Description of apparent stiffness reduction phenomena
Description of stiffness hardening phenomena
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Pile-Soil Interaction
Kondner(1963)
qpba qpsa(i)

qpbu qpsu(i)

kpb kps(i)

wp wp
wp wp
q pb q ps ( i )
1 wp 1 wp

K pb q pba K ps ( i ) q psa (i )
wp : settlement
qpb : unit end bearing
qps(i) : unit skin friction at element i
kpb : initial stiffness of toe(Randolph & Worth, 1978)
kps(i) : initial stiffness of skin at element i
qpba = qpbu /Rf : an asymptote of qpb
qpsa(i) = qpsu(i)/Rf : an asymptote of qps(i)
qpbu : ultimate unit end bearing
qpsu(i) : ultimate unit skin friction at element i
Rf : reduction factor
End bearing Skin friction
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Pile-Soil-Pile Interaction
Apparent stiffness reduction due to ground settlement generated by
pile settlement(Randolph & Worth, 1979)
No interface slip Interface slip
r
ws(r)
wp ws ws(rp)

w p ws rp
wp=ws(rp)+wslip
wslip

w p ws (rp )

s rp rm ws (rp ) w p wslip R fe wp
ws r ln , rp r rm
Gs r
wp wslip ws (rp )
ws r 0 , r rm R fe
wp wp
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Pile-Soil-Pile Interaction
Superposition of settlement with the effects of the adjacent piles
settlement makes apparent stiffness reduction in the group pile.

ri , j wp (i) wp (i, i ) wp (i, j ) ws (rp (i)) wslip (i) ws (ri , j )

wp i, j ws ri , j ws (rp (i ))
ws rp ( j ) wp (i ) wp (i, i ) wp (i, j ) ws (ri , j )
w p i, i R fe
wp i ws rp (i)
wp (i ) wp (i,1) wp (i,2) wp (i, n)
wslip j
wslip i 1 r (1) r (2)
(1)rp (1) ln m (2)rp (2) ln m
R fe r r
i ,1 i,2
r ( n)
(n)rp (n) ln m
ri , n
rp (1) rm (1) r ( 2) r ( n)
ln rp ( 2) ln m rp (n) ln m
R fe r1,1 r1, 2 r1,n (1)
w p (1)
w ( 2) rm (1) rp ( 2) rm ( 2) r ( n)
p rp (1) ln r
ln
rp (n) ln m (2)
2,1 R fe r2, 2 2,n
r




w ( n)
p rp (n) rm ( n) ( n)
The slip of pile does not affect to adjacent piles
r ( 2) ln settlement.
r ( 2)
r
r (1) ln rm (1)
p r
m
ln

rn ,n
p
i j n,1 n,2 R fe
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Raft-Soil-Pile Interaction
Apparent stiffness reduction of pile by raft

Relative settlement for the calculation of pile reaction

ws (0) wp
1
ws (1) wnet (0) 0
2
ws (2) wnet (1)

ws (3) wnet (2)

3

ws (4) wnet (3)

4

wnet ( 4)

wnet (i ) wp (i ) ws (i )
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Raft-Soil-Pile Interaction
Apparent stiffness reduction of soil spring in raft by piles
node i node i
ws,raft ws,pile

+ pile j

node i Q(i )
ks , raft (i)
ws,piled raft(i)= ws,raft (i)+ ws,pile(i) ws , raft (i )

Q(i ) Q(i )
ks , piled raft (i)
ws , piled raft (i) ws , raft (i ) ws , pile (i )

ws , raft (i )
ks , piled raft (i) k s , raft (i )
ws , raft (i ) ws , pile (i )
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Raft-Soil-Pile Interaction
Stiffness hardening of piles by raft would be considered by increasing the effective stress and
unit skin friction

v' (i, z ) vi' (i, z ) v' (i, z )

z qs
q psu
v (i, z )
q psu

pile i w
qpsu : ultimate unit skin friction
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Raft-Soil-Pile Interaction reduced scale test

Set-up of Test Piles Comparison of Load -Settlement Curves
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Comparison with 3D FEM Analysis
(PLAXIS 3D Foundation)

Example models for the evaluation of developed analysis program

Piled Raft
Single Raft Single Pile

z(m) Es(kPa)
0
1 Er = 30,000,000 kPa
Br = 6m
2 Lr = 6m
3 tr = 1.2m

4
5
6 Ep = 30,000,000 kPa
Dp = 0.5m
7
Lp = 10m
8
9 = 18kN/m3
c =0
10 = 30
11 np = 33
spacing = 2m
12
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Comparison with 3D FEM Analysis

3D FEM mesh model for piled raft analysis

Soil model raft and pile model

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Comparison with 3D FEM Analysis

Analysis results of raft foundation without piles
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Comparison with 3D FEM Analysis

Analysis results of single pile

Toe Skin Total

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Comparison with 3D FEM Analysis

Pile behaviors from the piled raft foundation analysis

Plaxis 3D This study

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Comparison with 3D FEM Analysis

Raft behaviors from the piled raft foundation analysis
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Comparison with 3D FEM Analysis

Total behavior of piled raft Piled raft coefficient
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Comparison with other approximate programs

Comparison with linear elastic analysis programs
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Conclusions
An approximate method has been developed for the practical design
of piled raft foundations, which analyze non-linear behaviors and soil-
structure interaction effects efficiently in multi-layered soils.

This method considers the apparent stiffness reduction in piles by the

adjacent piles and raft and apparent stiffness reduction in raft by the
piles and generates very similar results to 3D FEM analysis.

The effect of stiffness hardening of pile is under estimated. So, it

makes conservative results in comparison with 3D FEM analysis.

The results of comparisons with 3D FEM analysis also show the

sufficient applicability to practical analysis and design of piled raft
foundations.
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Further Study
Intelligent soil spring
Linear spring for raft-soil interaction was applied in this study.
Intelligent soil spring is needed to model true raft-soil interaction
and depend on the followings;
the relative stiffness of the raft and soil
the plan size and shape of the foundation
the distribution of applied loading on the raft
Intelligent soil spring will be determined by the iterative process of
soil spring reaction and ground settlement analysis.
Variable shape of raft foundation
Field test
Proto type field test
Centrifuge test
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Thank you