Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 112 (2018) 69–75

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Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/soildyn

Natural frequencies of piled raft foundation including superstructure effect T

a,b c,d a,e,⁎
Jashod Roy , Ashutosh Kumar , Deepankar Choudhury
a
Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, Mumbai 400076, India
b
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT 84604, USA
c
Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai 400076, India
d
Department of Engineering, Durham University, DH13LE, UK
e
Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR), CSIR Campus, India

A R T I C LE I N FO A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Dynamic characteristics of piled raft foundation system plays an important role in the safety of high-rise
Pile buildings subjected to seismic loadings though the analytical study considering the effect of both foundation and
Raft superstructure is very few in literature. The present study first proposes an exact analytical solution for piled raft
Earthquakes foundation subjected to harmonic excitation and resting on an elastic Winkler foundation to obtain its natural
Natural radial frequency
radial frequency. After successful validation through available centrifuge test results, a series of parametric study
Superstructure
Stiffness
has been carried out investigating the influence of various geometrical and geotechnical parameters of the
foundation and the soils respectively. It is observed that the pile length and the pile diameter has significant
effect on the natural radial frequency of the foundation system whereas soil density and spacing between piles
have minimal effect. The importance of stiffness of the superstructure is also considered in the proposed
methodology. It is found that the natural radial frequency of piled raft foundation including superstructure
stiffness decreases by 12% to 28% when compared with the computation of the natural radial frequency ex-
cluding effect of superstructure stiffness. Hence, this study provides a new analytical methodology to obtain the
dynamics characteristics of piled raft foundation considering the superstructure effect which can be used for the
design.

1. Introduction
Since few decades, piled raft foundation is well-known as an eco-
nomic foundation solution where piles are installed beneath the raft
considering serviceability requirement of structure [1,2]. Its successful
use for several high rise buildings can be found in Germany, Japan, UK,
UAE and many other countries [3–7]. In seismic regions, such buildings
are also subjected to dynamic loads containing a wide range of fre-
quencies. An existing pseudo-static method of analysis does not con-
sider the influence of natural frequency of the system in calculating its
dynamic response. During earthquake, these structures are subjected to
seismic loads having varying frequencies which needs severe attention
because if the natural frequency of the system comes closer to the
predominant frequency of an earthquake excitation, massive failure can
be expected. Several researchers have shown interest investigating
theses responses under seismic loading conditions. Gazetas and Dobry
(1984) [8] first studied the response of a single pile and a pile group
using Winkler modeling approach. Horikoshi et al. (2003) [9] per-
formed centrifuge study to obtain the behavior of piled raft foundation
subjected to dynamic loading. Matsumoto et al. (2004) [10] carried out
shaking table tests on pile-raft model embedded in dry sand by varying
the height of the superstructure. Baziar et al. (2018) [11] studied in-
fluence of superstructure on seismic behavior of piled raft foundation
by using centrifuge modeling. Kumar et al. (2016) [5] and few other
researchers [12,13] carried out numerical study to investigate the be-
havior of piled raft foundation under dynamic loadings. However, an
analytical methodology to quantify the dynamic characteristics of the
pile-raft-superstructure system in terms of natural frequency have not
been investigated till date. Here, an exact analytical solution is pro-
posed for a piled raft system resting on the elastic Winkler foundation.
A parametric study is then carried out to investigate the influence on
the natural frequency of foundation system with changes in its geo-
metrical as well as stiffness parameters. Later, the effect of stiffness of
the superstructure is also considered in the proposed new methodology
and its influence on the natural frequency of the system is investigated.
2. Methodology of modeling piled raft foundation
Piles are assumed to behave as Euler's beam element resting on the
linear Winkler foundation where lateral soil springs and dampers are

⁎
Corresponding author at: Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, Mumbai 400076, India.
E-mail addresses: royj2@byu.edu (J. Roy), ashutosh.kumar@durham.ac.uk (A. Kumar), dc@civil.iitb.ac.in, dchoudhury@iitb.ac.in (D. Choudhury).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soildyn.2018.04.048
Received 21 December 2017; Received in revised form 24 April 2018; Accepted 26 April 2018
0267-7261/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
J. Roy et al. Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 112 (2018) 69–75

List of notations kps pile-soil stiffness coefficient

krs raft-soil stiffness coefficient
The following symbols are used in this paper: L pile length
Wr total vertical load on raft including self-weight
A cross sectional area of pile y lateral displacement of pile at each node
Dr relative density yr lateral displacement of raft
d pile diameter ρ density of reinforced concrete
Eo modulus of deformation µ Poisson's ratio of soil
E elastic modulus λ predominant radial frequency of earthquake
G shear modulus ω natural radial frequency of the system
I moment of inertia ξ damping ratio of soil

attached along with their lengths. Fig. 1 illustrates a piled raft foun- 32(1 − μ) Ga
krs =
dation configuration idealized to single piled raft unit attached to lat- 7 − 8μ (4)
eral springs and dampers considering Kelvin-Voigt model. Considering 2
where G is the shear modulus of soil in kN/m obtained from the
the equilibrium of a pile element, the governing differential equation of
E = 2 G(1 +µ), where Young's modulus, E = 0.5(N + 15), N is SPT-N value
a pile based on free vibration analysis can be written as:
of soil [16], a is the equivalent radius of a raft element in meter, μ is the
∂ 4y ∂ 2y ∂y Poisson's ratio of the soil. The condition of compatibility is maintained at
EI + ρA 2 + kps dy + η =0
∂x 4 ∂t ∂t (1) junction between raft and pile head. A solution of the differential equation of
where y is the lateral displacement of the pile in m, x is the distance along the a pile can be assumed as:
pile starting from top in m, η is the damping coefficient of soil in kN-s/m, kps y = z (x ) q (t ) (5)
is the modulus of subgrade reaction in MN/m3 calculated by using Equation 2
[14], ρ is the density of reinforced concrete, A is the cross-sectional area of the where q(t) is a function of natural radial frequency ω, {e.g. q(t) = Qe }. iωt

pile, EI is the Flexural rigidity of the pile in kN m2. Inserting this form of solution into the differential Equation, following form is
obtained:
kps = 80E0 d−0.75 (2)
⎡ ∂ 4z − ⎛ ω2 − k ps d ⎞ z + iηωz ⎤ q = 0; c = EI
where E0 = 0.7 N, N is the SPT-N value, E0 is the modulus of deformation in ⎢ ∂x 4 ⎜
2
⎟
EI ⎥
MN/m2, d is the diameter of the pile in the cm. The differential equation for ⎣ ⎝c EI ⎠ ⎦ ρA (6)
the raft based on a free vibration of a rigid body can be expressed as: For solving the Eq. (6), the real part can be expressed as:
d 2y dyr ∂ 4z ω2 kps d
m 2r + krs yr + R + η =0 − β 4z = 0; β 4 = 2 −
dt dt (3) ∂x 4 c EI (7)
where m is the total mass of the raft including the load coming from the The general solution of the governing differential Equation is given
superstructure in kg, y is the displacement of the raft in meter, krs is the as:
horizontal raft-soil stiffness modulus in kN/m2 calculated by using Equation 4
[15] and R is the shear force acting between pile and raft in kN. z = c1 (cos βx + cosh βx ) + c2 (cos βx − cosh βx ) + c3 (sin βx + sinh βx )
+ c4 (sin βx − sinh βx ) (8)

Fig. 1. Idealization of piled raft foundation system into single pile-raft unit.

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J. Roy et al. Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 112 (2018) 69–75

Considering the natural damping of the soil mass, the damped

natural radial frequency ωd can be expressed as:

ωd = ωn 1 − ξ 2 (17)

Hence, the natural radial frequency, amplification factor and

damped natural radial frequency of the foundation system can be ob-
tained by using Eqs. 13, 16 and 17.

3. Validation of the proposed methodology

The developed analytical methodology is validated with a dynamic cen-

trifuge study reported by [17] where tests at 50 g were performed on dif-
ferent configurations of piled raft embedded in kaolin clay bed. Pile diameter
and length were kept as 1 m and 14 m. Here, fundamental natural radial
frequency of a 4 × 3 pile-raft system of same geometric parameters subjected
to a vertical pressure 32.38 kPa has been obtained. Firstly, a 4 × 3 piled raft
foundation configuration is converted to an equivalent single pile-raft system.
Fig. 2. Comparison of spectral response obtained in the present study and by [17].
The SPT-N value of soft clay is assumed as 7 as per [16]. Eq. (12) and 13 are
used to get the natural radial frequency of the system. The response spectrum
Here, the unknown constants (ci) are obtained by satisfying the
at the raft top is then obtained by multiplying input spectral acceleration
boundary conditions:
applied at the soil base with the corresponding dynamic magnification factor
dz dz d3z using Eq. (17). Fig. 2 illustrates the comparison of response spectra obtained
z (x = 0) = 0, z (x = l) = yr , ⎛ ⎞ =⎛ ⎞ = 0, EI ⎛ 3 ⎞ ⎜=R ⎟

dx dx
⎝ ⎠(x = 0) ⎝ ⎠(x = l) ⎝ dx ⎠(x = l) in the present study and reported by [17] which shows that both the results
are consistent and hence can be considered as the validation of the developed
(9)
analytical methodology.
Again by considering the real part of the Eq. (3), following Eq. (9) is
obtained:
d 2yr 4. Effect of various parameters on natural radial frequency of
m + krs yr + R = 0 piled raft foundation
dt 2 (9′)
Thus, satisfying the boundary conditions and real part of Eq. (3), A series of parametric study has been carried out to study the variation of
following forms of Equations are obtained: the natural radial frequency of piled raft foundation by varying pile lengths,
cos βl sinh βl + cosh βl sin βl ω2m − krs diameters, spacing and soil density. A uniform pressure of 50 kPa has been
= applied on raft to consider the lumped mass. Geotechnical properties of soil
βl (cos βl cosh βl − 1) β 4lEI (10)
and mechanical properties of pile and raft are given in Table 1.

cos βl sinh βl + cosh βl sin βl

=
c 2 β 4 + EI m − krs ( kps d
)
βl (cos βl cosh βl − 1) β 4lEI (11) 4.1. Effect of pile length, pile diameter and soil density

cos βl sinh βl + cosh βl sin βl c 2m ⎞ l3 (c 2k ps dmr − krs EI ) Here, pile length is varied from 10 m to 30 m and pile diameter is varied
(βl) 4 ⎛⎜ − ⎟ =

⎝ βl (cos βl cosh βl − 1) lEI ⎠ (EI )2 from 0.4 m to 2 m for a 2 × 2 piled raft configuration. It is observed from
(12) Fig. 3(a-c) that the natural radial frequency, ω = k / m , of the system de-
creases as the length of pile increases. This is because of the reduction in the
The first mode natural radial frequency, ω is obtained after ob-
overall stiffness of the foundation system with increase in pile length. Further,
taining the solution of (βl) as per:
ω of the system shows decreasing trend to an optimum pile diameter then it
kps d ⎞ increases with an increase in the pile diameter. This is because mass incre-
ω= c 2 ⎛β 4 +
⎜ ⎟
ment dominates over stiffness increment at the initial stage. The variation of
⎝ EI ⎠ (13)
soil density has minimal effect on the variation of natural radial frequency of
Based on this solution, eigen function of the beam-mass configura- the foundation system. This is because of the stiffness of the foundation
tion Z(x) can be obtained. Thereafter, the differential Equation can system dominates over the stiffness of the soil media that leads to the neg-
further be written as: ligible variation in the natural radial frequency with change in soil density
2
from loose to dense.
⎛⎜ ∂ q + η ∂q + kps dq + c 2β 4q ⎞⎟ z = 0
2
∂
⎝ t ρA ∂t ρA ⎠ (14) Table 1
Material properties of soil and piled raft foundation considered in the present
It can further be simplified to:
study [16].
2
⎛ρA ∂ q + η ∂q + kps dq + c 2β 4ρAq ⎞ z = 0
⎜ ⎟ Soil type SPT – N Unit weight Young's modulus Poisson's Damping
⎝ ∂t2 ∂t ⎠ (15) (kN/m3) (kN/m2) ratio ratio

If the foundation is subjected to an external excitation of radial fre- Loose sand 5 17.5 10,000 0.35 0.1
quency λ, the dynamic magnification factor (DMF) can be obtained as: Medium sand 15 18.8 15,000 0.32 0.1
Dense sand 30 19.6 22,500 0.30 0.1
1 Pile – 25.0 3 × 107 0.20 –
DMF =
λ 2
2 2 Raft – 25.0 3 × 107 0.20 –
⎡1 −
⎣
()
ω ⎦
⎤ + ⎡2ξ
⎣ ( ) ⎤⎦
λ
ω (16) Column – 25.0 3 × 107 – –

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J. Roy et al. Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 112 (2018) 69–75

Fig. 4. Variation of natural radial frequency with pile spacing for (a) pile length
(b) pile diameter.

4.2. Effect of pile spacing

Here, pile spacing to diameter ratio (S/d) has been varied from 3 to
7 for piles embedded in medium dense sand. First, pile diameter of 1 m
is kept constant and then pile lengths are varied from 15 m to 30 m. In
second case, pile length of 25 m is kept constant and then pile diameter
are varied from 0.8 m to 1.2 m. It can be seen from Fig. 4(a & b) that
change in the pile geometry does not have any effect on ω of the piled
raft foundation. This is because of the increase in the stiffness and
lumped mass ignoring the interaction with an increase in the pile spa-
cing and on the other hand, pile length remains constant leading to no
change in the pile stiffness. This case is similar to the increase in pile
diameter.

5. Methodology to include the stiffness of the superstructure

Fig. 3. Variation of natural radial frequency with pile length and diameter in
Here, both the mass and stiffness of the superstructure overlying
(a) loose sand, (b) medium sand and (c) dense sand.
piled raft foundation are considered. Fig. 5 illustrates the idealized
mass-stiffness distribution for the piled raft foundation and super-
structure. The analysis involves following simplified steps: First, ω of
the foundation part is obtained excluding the superstructure.

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J. Roy et al. Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 112 (2018) 69–75

Fig. 5. Idealized model for piled raft foundation including superstructure.

Thereafter, a piled raft system is replaced by an equivalent mass-spring

system. Then, pile-soil system is replaced by an equivalent spring
constant and can be expressed as:
keq = mr ωn2 (18)
Second, if the superstructure is of (n−1) storied, an overall system
containing foundation and superstructure becomes a unit of n degrees
of freedom as shown in Fig. 5. The Equation of motion for the free
vibration of this system can be written as:
••
MX + KX = 0 (19)
where M is the mass matrix, K is the stiffness matrix, X is the dis-
placement vector and Ẍ is the acceleration vector. This element can Fig. 6. (a) Comparison of amplification response obtained in the present study
further be expressed as: and by [18]. (b) Variation of natural radial frequency with pile length and
diameter in medium sand.
⎡ m1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 ⎤
⎢ 0 m2 0 0 0 0 0 0 ⎥
(-1)i+j(k21+k23). Next, the solution of the displacement vector ‘X’ can
⎢ 0 0 m3 0 0 0 0 0 ⎥
⎢ ⎥ be assumed as:
M=⎢0 0 0 . 0 0 0 0 ⎥
⎢0 0 0 0 . 0 0 0 ⎥ X = ϕ (x ) eiωt (21)
⎢0 0 0 0 0 . 0 0 ⎥
⎢0 0 0 0 0 0 . 0 ⎥ Hence, the equation of motion becomes the following:
⎢0 0 0 0 0 0 0 mn ⎥
⎣ ⎦, (K − ω2M ) ϕ (x ) = 0 (22)
⎡ k11 k12 0 0 0 0 0 0 ⎤ 2
To get the solution, the determinant of (K-ω M) will have to be zero.
⎢ k21 k22 k23 0 0 0 0 0 ⎥ ⎧ X1 ⎫ Thus n number of natural frequencies with corresponding eigenvectors
⎢0 k k 0 0 0 0 0 ⎥ ⎪ X2 ⎪
⎢ 32 33 ⎥ can be obtained from the Equation:
K=⎢0 0 0 . 0 0 0 0 ⎥ X = ⎪ X3 ⎪
.
⎢0 0 0 0 . 0 0 0 ⎥ ⎨ . ⎬ K − ω2M = 0 (23)
⎢0 0 0 0 0 . 0 0 ⎥ ⎪ . ⎪
.
⎢0 0 0 0 0 0 kn − 1n − 1 kn − 1n ⎥ ⎪ ⎪ The proposed methodology has been validated with available dy-
⎢ ⎥ X
⎩ n⎭
namic centrifuge tests results [18] on 3 × 3 pile group system having
⎣0 0 0 0 0 0 knn − 1 knn ⎦, (20)
piles of length 10 m and diameter 0.4 m. Here, piles are embedded in
Here, kij is the stiffness attached between the mass ‘i’ and mass ‘j’. If dense silica sand (Dr=84%) supporting two degrees of freedom struc-
the flexural rigidity of the columns between two stories is EcIc having ture. Raft-soil interaction is ignored to consider the pile group effect
the length of Lc, then the element of the stiffness matrix kij will be and SPT-N value for dense sand is assumed as 28 as per [16]. Ampli-
(−1)i+j12EcIc/Lc3 if i ‡ j. For the case of i = j, the matrix element will be fication at the level of mass m1 is obtained including the free-field
the total stiffness attached to a mass i.e. k22, can be written as amplification given in [18] with DMF. Fig. 6(a) illustrates the

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J. Roy et al. Soil Dynamics and Earthquake Engineering 112 (2018) 69–75

Fig. 7. Comparison between the natural radial frequency of piled raft founda-
tion with and without superstructure stiffness.
comparison of amplification at the level of mass m1 obtained in the
present study with respect to amplification reported by [18] which
shows that both the amplification responses are in close agreement,
hence can be considered as successful validation of the proposed
methodology. Further, a parametric study has been carried out con-
sidering a three-storied building (floor thickness 150 mm, floor to floor
height of 3.5 m and square column of width 400 mm) supported on
4 × 4 piled raft foundation having the pile spacing of 4 times the pile
diameter. Here, the stiffness of the column has been obtained by the
expression 12EcIc/Lc3 where, Ec = 30,000 MPa, Ic = 21.33 × 10−4 m4.
Pile diameter is varied from 0.4 m to 2 m and results are obtained for
15–30 m of pile length. Fig. 6(b) illustrates the variation of the natural
radial frequency of the system with respect to the pile diameter. The
pattern of variation is similar to the previous case.
6. Comparison of the natural radial frequency between piled raft
foundation without and with superstructure and story effect
A comparative study is carried out for a 4 × 4 piled raft system
having piles of length 15 m spaced at 4 times the pile diameter em-
bedded in medium dense sand, with and without superstructure stiff-
ness. A three stories idealized superstructure and a similar lumped mass
model have been considered. The natural radial frequency of the system
decreases due to increase in flexibility with the inclusion of super-
structure stiffness, as shown in Fig. 7. The percentage difference
Fig. 8. Variation of natural radial frequency of pile-raft-superstructure system
with pile diameters.
between ω, with and without superstructure, is reducing from 12–28%
with increase in pile diameter from 0.5 m to 1.5 m because of an in-
crease in mass of the foundation as given in Table 2. Further, the
number of stories of the superstructure is varied from 2 to 16 and in-
fluence of the number of stories is obtained with respect to change in
pile diameter, as shown in Fig. 8. It can be seen that the ω of the system
decreases with the increase in the stories because of the increase in the
overall stiffness of the system.
7. Conclusions
The present work develops an exact analytical solution for a har-
monically vibrating piled raft foundation system. A series of parametric
study is carried out after successful validation of the proposed metho-
dology. It is observed that the natural radial frequency of the founda-
tion decreases as the pile length increases because of a decrease in the
stiffness of the piles. The natural radial frequency of a piled raft foun-
dation including superstructure stiffness reduces from 12–28% with
respect to piled raft foundation excluding the superstructure stiffness.
The present study gives a new analytical procedure for obtaining the
natural frequency of piled raft foundation without and with super-
structure effect, hence can be considered as an improvement over ex-
isting studies.

Table 2
Comparison between natural radial frequency of piled raft foundation with and without superstructure for a pile of length 15 m.
Pile diameter Flexural rigidity of single ωwithout superstructure (rad/s) ωwith superstructure (rad/s) % change in natural
(m) pile (EpIp) (MN.m2) (4 ×4 pile configuration) (4 ×4 pile configuration) radial frequency

0.5 92.07 9.73 8.54 12

0.6 190.93 6.96 6 14
0.8 603.43 6.49 5.4 17
1.0 1473.21 6.97 5.63 19
1.2 3054.86 7.9 6.12 23
1.5 7458.15 9.63 6.98 28

Note: ω -Natural radial frequency.

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J. Roy et al.
Acknowledgement
Authors want to acknowledge the funding received from Board of
Research in Nuclear Sciences, Department of Atomic Energy,
Government of India, with grant number 36(2)/15/04/2016-BRNS/
36004-36029 (16BRNS012), for carrying out the research work pre-
sented in this paper.
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