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

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

2/24
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
3/24
Design Philosophies of Piled Rafts
Curve 0 : raft only(settlement excessive)

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
Load settlement curves for piled rafts (Poulos, 1997)
Increasing number of piles
4/24
Application of Piled Raft Foundations to Civil Structure
5/24
Modeling Summary
6/24
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
q : Distributed Load
Q : Point Load
Raft
Soil Spring
w
Q
s
Shaft Resistance
Q
psi
w
net
Q
pb
w
net
Base Resistance
Iteration
for
Compatibility Q
p
: Pile Load
Q
p
: Pile Load
Raft analysis on the spring Pile group behavior analysis
Pile-Soil Interaction
Kondner(1963)
w
p
q
pbu
k
pb
q
pba
q
psu(i)
q
psa(i)
k
ps(i)
pba
p
pb
p
pb
q
w
K
w
q
+
=
1
) ( ) (
) (
1
i psa
p
i ps
p
i ps
q
w
K
w
q
+
=
w
p
w
p
: settlement
q
pb
: unit end bearing
k
pb
: initial stiffness of toe(Randolph & Worth, 1978)
q
pba
= q
pbu
/R
f
: an asymptote of q
pb

q
pbu
: ultimate unit end bearing
R
f
: reduction factor
q
ps
(i) : unit skin friction at element i
k
ps
(i) : initial stiffness of skin at element i
q
psa
(i) = q
psu
(i)/R
f
: an asymptote of q
ps
(i)
q
psu
(i) : ultimate unit skin friction at element i
End bearing Skin friction
7/24
Pile-Soil-Pile Interaction
Apparent stiffness reduction due to ground settlement generated by
pile settlement(Randolph & Worth, 1979)
r
p
w s
w
( )
m p
m
s
p s
s
r r r
r
r
G
r
r w < <
|
.
|

\
|
= , ln
t
( )
m s
r r r w > = , 0
( )
p s p
r w w =
) (
p s p
r w w =
w
s
(r)
w
s
(r
p
)
w
slip

w
p
=w
s
(r
p
)+w
slip

No interface slip Interface slip
p fe slip p p s
w R w w r w = = ) (
p
p s
p
slip p
fe
w
r w
w
w w
R
) (
=

=
8/24
Pile-Soil-Pile Interaction
i

j

j i
r
,
( ) i w
p
( ) i i w
p
,
( ) ( )
,
,
p s i j
w i j w r =
( ) ) (i r w
p s
( ) i w
slip
( ) ) ( j r w
p s
( ) j w
slip
Superposition of settlement with the effects of the adjacent
piles settlement makes apparent stiffness reduction in the group
pile.











The slip of pile does not affect to adjacent piles settlement.
) ( ) ( )) ( ( ) , ( ) , ( ) (
, j i s slip p s p p p
r w i w i r w j i w i i w i w + + = + =
) (
)) ( (
) , ( ) , ( ) (
, j i s
fe
p s
p p p
r w
R
i r w
j i w i i w i w + = + =
|
|
.
|

\
|
I + +
|
|
.
|

\
|
I +
|
|
.
|

\
|
I =
+ + + =
n i
m
p
i
m
p
i
m
p
fe
p p p p
r
n r
n r n
r
r
r
r
r
r
R
n i w i w i w i w
,
2 , 1 ,
) (
ln ) ( ) (
) 2 (
ln ) 2 ( ) 2 (
) 1 (
ln ) 1 ( ) 1 (
1
) , ( ) 2 , ( ) 1 , ( ) (

I
I
I
(
(
(
(
(
(
(
(
(
(
(
(

|
|
.
|

\
|
|
|
.
|

\
|
|
|
.
|

\
|
|
|
.
|

\
|
|
|
.
|

\
|
|
|
.
|

\
|
|
|
.
|

\
|
|
|
.
|

\
|
|
|
.
|

\
|
=

) (
) 2 (
) 1 (
) (
ln
) ( ) 2 (
ln ) 2 (
) 1 (
ln ) 1 (
) (
ln ) (
) 2 (
ln
) 2 ( ) 1 (
ln ) 1 (
) (
ln ) (
) 2 (
ln ) 2 (
) 1 (
ln
) 1 (
) (
) 2 (
) 1 (
, 2 , 1 ,
, 2 2 , 2 1 , 2
, 1 2 , 1 1 , 1
n
r
n r
R
n r
r
r
r
r
r
r
r
n r
n r
r
r
R
r
r
r
r
r
n r
n r
r
r
r
r
r
R
r
n w
w
w
n n
m
fe
p
n
m
p
n
m
p
n
m
p
m
fe
p m
p
n
m
p
m
p
m
fe
p
p
p
p

9/24
Raft-Soil-Pile Interaction
Apparent stiffness reduction of pile by raft











Relative settlement for the calculation of pile reaction
) ( ) ( ) ( i w i w i w
s p net
=
) 1 (
s
w
) 2 (
s
w
) 3 (
s
w
) 4 (
s
w
) 0 (
s
w
0
1
2
3
4
w
p
0 ) 0 ( =
net
w
) 1 (
net
w
) 2 (
net
w
) 3 (
net
w
) 4 (
net
w
10/24
Raft-Soil-Pile Interaction
Apparent stiffness reduction of soil spring in raft by piles
w
s,raft
node i

node i

pile j

w
s,pile
+

w
s,piled raft
(i)= w
s,raft
(i)+ w
s,pile
(i)

node i

) (
) (
) (
,
,
i w
i Q
i k
raft s
raft s
=
) ( ) (
) (
) (
) (
) (
, , ,
,
i w i w
i Q
i w
i Q
i k
pile s raft s raft piled s
raft piled s
+
= =
) (
) ( ) (
) (
) (
,
, ,
,
,
i k
i w i w
i w
i k
raft s
pile s raft s
raft s
raft piled s
+
=
11/24
Raft-Soil-Pile Interaction
Stiffness hardening of piles by raft would be considered by
increasing the effective stress and unit skin friction
) , ( ) , ( ) , (
' ' '
z i z i z i
v vi v
o o o A + =
k

) , ( z i
v
o' A
q
pile i
z
s
q
w
psu
q
psu
q
q
psu
: ultimate unit skin friction
12/24
Raft-Soil-Pile Interaction reduced scale test
Set-up of Test Piles Comparison of Load -Settlement Curves
13/24
Comparison with 3D FEM Analysis
(PLAXIS 3D Foundation)
Example models for the evaluation of developed analysis program
0
2107
3650
4712
5576
6322
6989
7598
8162
8689
9186
9657
10107
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
10
11
9
z(m) E
s
(kPa)
12
= 18kN/m
3
c = 0
= 30
E
r
= 30,000,000 kPa
B
r
= 6m
L
r
= 6m
t
r
= 1.2m

E
p
= 30,000,000 kPa
D
p
= 0.5m
L
p
= 10m

n
p
= 33
spacing = 2m

Single Raft Single Pile
Piled Raft
14/24
Comparison with 3D FEM Analysis
3D FEM mesh model for piled raft analysis
Soil model raft and pile model
15/24
Comparison with 3D FEM Analysis
Analysis results of raft foundation without piles
0
20
40
60
80
100
0.0 1.0 2.0 3.0 4.0 5.0
Load(MN)
S
e
t
t
l
e
m
e
n
t
(
m
m
)
Plaxis 3D
Present Study
16/24
Comparison with 3D FEM Analysis
Analysis results of single pile
0
20
40
60
80
100
0 200 400 600 800 1000
Load(kN)
S
e
t
t
l
e
m
e
n
t
(
m
m
)
Plaxis 3D
Present study
0
20
40
60
80
100
0 200 400 600 800 1000
Load(kN)
S
e
t
t
l
e
m
e
n
t
(
m
m
)
Plaxis 3D
Present study
0
20
40
60
80
100
0 200 400 600 800 1000
Load(kN)
S
e
t
t
l
e
m
e
n
t
(
m
m
)
Plaxis 3D
Present study
Toe Skin Total
17/24
Comparison with 3D FEM Analysis
Pile behaviors from the piled raft foundation analysis
Plaxis 3D This study
0
40
80
120
160
200
0 200 400 600 800 1000
Load(kN)
S
e
t
t
l
e
m
e
n
t
(
m
m
)
Center
Edge
Corner
Single
0
40
80
120
160
200
0 200 400 600 800 1000
Load(kN)
S
e
t
t
l
e
m
e
n
t
(
m
m
)
Center
Edge
Corner
Single
18/24
Comparison with 3D FEM Analysis
Raft behaviors from the piled raft foundation analysis
0
20
40
60
80
100
0 1 2 3 4 5
Load(MN)
S
e
t
t
l
e
m
e
n
t
(
m
m
)
Raft only (Plaxis3D)
Piled raft (Plaxis3D)
Raft only (present study)
Piled raft (present study)
19/24
Comparison with 3D FEM Analysis
Total behavior of piled raft
0
20
40
60
80
100
0 2 4 6 8 10
Load(MN)
S
e
t
t
l
e
m
e
n
t
(
m
m
)
Plaxis3D
Present study
Piled raft coefficient
0
20
40
60
80
100
0 20 40 60 80 100
L
o
a
d

o
n

P
i
l
e
s
(
%
)
Settlement(mm)
Plaxis 3D
Present Study
20/24
Comparison with other approximate programs
Comparison with linear elastic analysis programs
0
20
40
60
80
100
0 2 4 6 8 10
Load(MN)
S
e
t
t
l
e
m
e
n
t
(
m
m
)
Plaxis3D
Pile+R
FEAR8.1
Present study
21/24
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.

22/24
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
23/24
Thank you
24/24