Control and prediction of the pile foundations behavior through settlement measures

This paper shows experimental results of settlement measurements of a residential building during construction. The foundation is composed by deep continuous auger pile. The foundation strata is basically constituted by soft/loose soils. Important aspects are pointed out regarding soil-structure interaction and its influence on mechanical response of the building. A brief description of the surveying methodology is presented. The evaluation of the loading in the foundation was done by a three dimensional numerical model. Two different mechanical approaches were considered: fixed foundation (no movements) and one dimensional movements foundation, where the foundation is considered to displace in vertical direction only. The soil-structure interaction was assessed by comparison the measured settlements against the loads obtained through two approaches considered. These results allowed the evaluation of factors that play important role on the load re-distribution due to soil-structure interactions, mainly the increase of structure rigidity.