Structural and geotechnical aspects of piled raft foundation through numerical analysis

Piled raft foundation (PRF) is a cost effective and sustainable foundation option which can reduce the total and differential settlement, and improve the bearing capacity of the foundation in case of high-rise superstructures or marine structures. This study mainly focuses on a parametric analysis of PRF and also checks the impact of various design parameters on the structural and geotechnical aspects of PRF including the settlement of PRF and its components, raft-soil contact behaviour, bending moment, axial stress on pile, soil stress and settlement in different directions etc. To understand the contribution of piles in PRF, two factors such as relative improvement in the stiffness and settlement ratio are also evaluated. The results of the present study indicate that the differential and reference settlement can be controlled by the addition of piles under the raft, whereas the value of normalized differential settlement remains increasing with an increase in the pile spacing to diameter (s/d) ratio. In case of raft-soil contact behaviour, the contact pressure increases if the raft width is increased, but the rate of increment is prominent in case of a higher number of piles. The raft is showing both the sagging and hogging bending moment and as s/d ratio increases, bending moment also tends to increase.