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3D Modeling of Piled Raft Foundation Subjected To Vertical Loading

Conference Paper · May 2013

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 3rd Specialty Conference on Material Engineering & Applied Mechanics
3e Conférence spécialisée sur le génie des matériaux et mécanique appliquée

Montréal, Québec
May 29 to June 1, 2013 / 29 mai au 1 juin 2013

3D Modeling of Piled Raft Foundation Subjected To Vertical Loading

1 2 3
A. M. Alnuaim , H. El Naggar , M. H. El Naggar
1
PhD Candidate, Western University and affiliated with King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
2
Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering, University of New Brunswick.
3
Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Western University.

Abstract: In recent years large number of mega projects were constructed using the piled raft foundation
system concept. hence a noticeable attention have been drawn toward better understanding of the
performance of piled raft foundation systems subjected to vertical loading. Piled raft foundations have a
complex soil-structure interaction scheme including the pile-soil interaction, pile-pile interaction, raft-soil
interaction, and finally the pile-raft interaction. Consequently, there is a need for 3D numerical models that
is capable of studying this complex interaction. In this paper, a 3D finite element model was verified
using published geotechnical centrifuge test data. The study was performed on cohesionless soil with
linearly increasing stiffness with depth. The developed 3D model was able to capture the behavior of the
piled raft foundation system. In addition, an extended parametric study in which the effect of different
parameters, such as pile spacing, piled diameter, raft width, and raft thickness on the overall behaviour of
a piled raft was conducted.

Keywords: piled raft foundation, soil-structure interaction, 3D FEM, centrifuge, cohesionless soil

1 Introduction

A piled raft foundation is a composite structure with three components: subsoil, raft and pile. These
components are related to each other through a complex soil-structure interaction scheme, including the
pile-soil interaction, pile-pile interaction, raft-soil interaction, and finally the pile-raft interaction.

Generally, the construction of a piled raft foundation system is similar to the current practices used to
construct a pile group foundation in which a cap is normally cast directly on the ground. Although this
installation of a cap will allow a significant percentage of the load to be transmitted directly from the cap to
the ground, the pile group is usually designed conservatively by ignoring the bearing capacity of the raft
(in this case the pile cap). The raft alone can provide an adequate bearing capacity; however, it may
induce excessive settlement. Therefore, the concept of settlement reducer piles was presented by
Burland et al. (1977) in which the piles are used to limit the average and differential settlements.

The vertical load applied to a piled raft foundation is transmitted to the ground by both the raft and the pile
in the pile raft foundation. This fact is the major difference between the piled raft and the pile group. The
percentage of load each element carries depends on a number of factors, such as the spacing of piles,
the number of piles, subsoil, and the thickness and stiffness of the raft.

A piled raft foundation has some advantages over the pile group in terms of the design and from a
serviceability and economic point of view. They include the following: (i) a piled raft foundation will
require fewer piles in comparison to a pile group to satisfy the same design requirements; this will lead to
a more economical design; (ii) for a piled raft, the piles will provide sufficient stiffness to control the

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settlement and differential settlement at serviceability load; and the raft will provide additional capacity at
ultimate load; (iii) in case any piles in the piled raft become defective, the raft allows re-distribution of the
load from the damaged piles to the other piles (Poulos et al. 2011); (iv) a raft in the piled raft foundation
can carry 30% to 50% of the applied load and transmit to the soil (Clancy and Randolph, 1993); and (v)
the pressure applied from the raft to the subsoil may increase the lateral stress between underlying piles
and the soil, which can increase the pile bearing capacity accordingly compared to the piles in a pile
group (Katzenbach et al. 1998).

A number of methods were proposed using different analytical, numerical and physical modeling
approaches to evaluate the performance of piled raft foundation , including the following: (i) a simplified
PDR in which the Poulos and Davis (1980) method as well as Randolph (1994) are combined (Poulos
2001); (ii) a plates-on-spring method in which the raft is represented by plates and the piles by springs
(Clancy and Randolph 1993); (iii) methods based on combining the finite element analysis for the raft and
the boundary element analysis for the piles (Ta and Small 1996); (iv) methods based on a three-
dimensional finite elements analysis (Katzenbach et al.1998); and (v) geotechnical centrifuge technology
which has been used to evaluate the performance of piled raft loading under vertical, lateral and seismic
loading (Horikoshi et al. 2002, 2003a, b, Matsumoto et al. 2004a, b).

A finite element model (FEM) was created as part of this study in order to simulate the centrifuge results
of a piled raft foundation under vertical loading; this model will be used in future work to evaluate the
performance of a piled raft foundation, and the load sharing in particular will be investigated using this
calibrated, verified and rigorous 3D finite element model. Moreover, the effect of the raft thickness in load
sharing between piled raft components was investigated.

2 Objectives

A geotechnical centrifuge test is capable of producing very accurate results that represent the real
behaviour of a prototype in the field. This is due to the fact that vertical and horizontal stresses in
geotechnical centrifuge are similar to the stresses in the field. Since soil parameters are influenced by the
surrounding stress, matching the field stress will produce more realistic model behaviour compared to the
prototype behaviour. Another great tool that is capable of modeling the behaviour of soil and structural
elements accurately is a finite element analysis (FEA); however, in order to increase the confidence in
FEM to accurately simulate the problem, it is very necessary to calibrate the FEM. Using a calibrated
FEM is a great tool in performing an extended parametric study in the most accurate and economic way.

In this paper, the aim was to accurately simulate the behaviour of a piled raft foundation numerically using
a 3D FEM. This objective was achieved by calibrating the FEM using centrifuge results for a piled raft
model. It is very important for the calibrated model to be able to predict the stresses in the pile, raft and
soil that are similar to the stresses in the field; by achieving this, the results obtained from a FEM will be
representative of the field results. This calibrated model was used to conduct an extended parametric
study in which the effect of different parameters, such as pile spacing, piled diameter, raft width, and raft
thickness on the overall behaviour of a piled raft was investigated.

3 Centrifuge Testing

Geotechnical centrifuge testing has the ability to model very complicated problems such as the soil-
structure interaction for a piled raft. Horikoshi et al. (2002, 2003a, b) used this technology to evaluate the
performance of a piled raft under different types of loading: vertical; horizontal and dynamic loading. The
results of the vertical loading test were used to calibrate the 3D finite element model for the current
investigation. The tests were conducted under 50g centrifugal acceleration and all the model parts were
made of aluminum. The model consisted of four piles rigidly connected to the raft. Toyoura sand was
used as the model ground (Horikoshi et al. 2003a). Table 1 summarizes the dimensions of the model in
both model and prototype scales. Although the material of piled raft model is different than the material for
the prototype, the axial stiffness is scaled correctly which will satisfy the scaling laws for the centrifuge
testing using the following scaling law:

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[2]

Horikoshi et al. (2003a) performed cone penetration tests (CPT) during the geotechnical centrifuge testing
to evaluate the sand strength. The test was performed using an in-flight miniature cone penetration (see
Figure 1). The strength was increased with depth which is normal for sand soil. These results are very
important and were used to evaluate the FEM input parameters such as the initial modulus of elasticity
and the incremental modulus of elasticity which took into account the increase in stiffness with depth. The
piles were instrumented with foil strain gauges in order to estimate the load carried by the piles as well as
the load carried by the raft. The load-displacement curve for the piled raft foundation under vertical
loading obtained from the centrifuge test is shown in Figure 4 in the prototype scale. In addition, Figure 5
shows the percentage of the load carried by each component in the piled raft.

Table 1. The dimensions of the model in both model and prototype scales.

Symbols Model Prototype (n=50)

Diameter (mm) D 10 500
Wall thickness (mm) tw 1 Solid
Materials - Aluminum Concrete
Pile length Lp 170 mm 8.5 m
Modulus of Elasticity Eo 71 GPa 41.7 GPa
Raft thickness t 40 mm 2.0 m
Raft width (square) B 80 mm 4m
Pile Spacing s 40 mm 2m
Number of piles - 4 4
-3
Axial rigidity EA 2x10 GN 5 GN

Cone Tip Resistance, qc (MN/m2)

0 5 10 15 20
0

40
Depth (mm)

80

120

160

200

Figure 1. In-flight results for CPT (after Horikoshi et al. (2003a).

4 3D Finite Element Model and 3D FEM Calibration

A finite element analysis (FEA) was carried out using the Plaxis 3D v.2011 software package (Plaxis bv.
2011). A quarter of the piled raft was modeled taking advantage of the similarity across the x and y-axes.
The boundaries of the model were set at a distance equal to 1.5b~2b measured from the edge of the raft,
and the depth of the model was approximately two times the pile length (see Figure 2). The model was
built using about 275,000 3D 10-node tetrahedral elements. The average size of the element was
approximately 110 mm. The reason for using this large amount of elements with very small size was to

MEC-007-3
assure high accuracy of the results at locations where non-linearity behavior was anticipated, such as at
the raft base, pile base and pile circumference. The interface elements in Plaxis 3D, which was used to
model the contact between the soil and the structural elements, allows for both slipping and gapping to
occur (Plaxis bv. 2011). The gapping will allows the raft to contribute in transferring the load to the soil
and slipping will allows the piles to transfer the load to the soil.

The load was applied using uniform prescribed displacement applied at the top of the raft in which the
piled raft was subjected to a certain displacement and the solver obtained the corresponding load (i.e.
uniformly distributed load). The analysis was performed using 3 phases: the first phase the was initial
phase in which the in-situ stress was calculated and the structural components were not activated; the
second phase activated the structural components and soil-structure interface without applying the load in
order to restore the equilibrium by solving any out-of-balance force (Plaxis bv. 2011); the third phase
applied the prescribed displacement.

The Toyoura sand was modeled using a linear elastic perfectly plastic Mohr-Coulomb constitutive model.
Matsumoto et al. (2004b) reported that the maximum friction angle,max, for Toyoura sand is about 45and
the reduction factor, Rint, at the interaction surface between piles and Toyoura sand is 0.43 (Horikoshi et
al. 2003a). In the FEM, the angle of internal friction, , was used as 31 and the Dilation angle was used
as 14. The modulus of elasticity was estimated using the correlation that relates the cone tip resistance,
qc, with the modulus of elasticity, according to Tomlinson (1996) (see Eq.2). All the FEM input parameters
for both the initial and the final models are listed in Table 2.

[2]

In the initial trials, the soil was modeled using an average modulus of elasticity which led to very high
error in the load-displacement curve between the FEM and the centrifuge test. However, by using the
advanced function in Plaxis 3D that allows to increase the stiffness of the soil with depth (see Eq. 3), the
results were improved dramatically. Moreover, after a number of trials and adjusting the stiffness and
strength properties of the soil and interface elements, the FEM was capable of simulating the centrifuge
test results with minor errors (see Figure 4). Moreover, the FEM successfully simulated the stress
distribution across the model; therefore the load carried by each component in the piled raft (from FEM)
was similar to the one evaluated in the centrifuge test with minimum errors (see Figure 5).

[3] ́ ́ ( )́

1.5B~2B

2Lp

Figure 2. The FEM used in the current study.

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 Table 2. The parameters used in the FEA.

Soil
Symbols Concrete
Initial FEA Final FEA
Constitutive Modeling - Mohr-Coulomb Mohr-Coulomb Linear Elastic
3
Unit Weight (kN/m ) d 14.6 14.6 23.6
Angle of internal friction  36 31 -
Dilation angle ψ 7 14 -
2 2
Average Modulus of Elasticity 30000 kN/m - 23.6 GN/m
2
Initial Modulus of Elasticity Eo - 4500 kN/m -
Reference Depth zref - 1m -
Stiffness increases with depth - No Yes No
Incremental Modulus of
2 Einc - 6500 -
Elasticity (kN/m /m)
Poisson’s ratio  0.175 0.175 0.21
Interface reduction factor Rintr 0.43 0.43 -

Figure 3. The 3D structural elements of FEM.

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 28000

24000

Load (kN) 20000

16000

12000

8000

4000
Horikoshi et al. 2003a FEA
0
0 0.05 0.1 0.15 0.2 0.25
Displacment (m)

Figure 4. Comparison of the FEA results with the data obtained from the centrifuge test.

100%
Load Carried by the Piles Horikoshi et al. 2003
90%
Load Carried by the Raft Horikoshi et al. 2003
Load Carried by the Piles FEA
Load shared by each component, %

80%
Load Carried by the Raft FEA
70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Incremental displacement / final displacement, %

Figure 5. Comparison of the load carried by each component from FEA results with the data obtained
from the centrifuge test.

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5 Parametric Study

Different factors will affect the load sharing between the raft and piles, and these factors vary between
low impact to high impact on the load sharing in a piled raft foundation and the stress distribution in the
raft. Many of these factors were investigated. A future comprehensive FEA study will be conducted that
will allow a better understanding of the effects of these parameters on the overall performance of a piled
raft foundation system. The results of this FEA plan will be presented in future publications; however,
some of the results is presented in this paper. Understanding the exact effect of these parameters will
help to produce a more suitable design for the piled raft foundation. In this paper, the effect of the
flexibility of the raft on load sharing between the raft and the piles, which is normally influenced by the
thickness of the raft and spacing between the piles, was studied. All of the load carried by the raft will be
presented as a percentage of the total vertical load applied on the piled raft foundation system.

5.1 Effect of raft thickness

There is a direct relationship between the thickness of a raft and its flexibility (see Eq. 4). Thin or flexible
rafts tend to deform more than rigid or thick rafts; due to this excessive deformation, the flexible raft
establishes much more deformation in the subsoil which leads to more load transferred by the raft and
this will induce higher reaction force. Brown (1969) introduced the foundation flexibility based on a finite
element analysis. Although Eq. 4 is for a shallow foundation, it was used for the piled raft by using
spacing between the piles instead of the raft width, B. This is because the spacing between piles is more
accurate in representing the flexibility of the piled raft. Furthermore, the piled raft with small pile spacing
will not experience a large deformation at the center of the raft compared to the piled raft with large pile
spacing.

[4] [ ⁄ ]( )

Where Ef = Young's modulus for the raft; Es = average soil elastic modulus; t = raft thickness; and s =
spacing between piles.

The raft can be characterized according to the following conditions: (i) perfectly rigid if K f > 10; (ii)
perfectly flexible when Kf < 0.01; and (iii) intermediate flexibility if Kf varies between 0.01 to 10 (Mayne
and Poulos 1999). Figures 6 and 7 show the load carried by the raft for two different pile spacing with
various raft thicknesses as a function of the piled raft total displacement. At initial displacement, most of
the load is carried by the piles; this is believed to be because the piles are in direct contact to the soil due
to the confinement pressures and when the piles start to move the pile-soil interface will increase the
strains at the pile base, reaching plastic condition. This piles movement resulted in more intimate contact
between the raft and soil, which resulted in a portion of the load to be transmitted through the contact at
the raft-soil interface; comparable behavior was reported by Horikoshi and Randolph (1996).
Subsequently, the proportion of the load carried by the raft was increased significantly at about 7% of the
total displacement and the increase was gradual beyond 7% point. At about 80% of displacement the
load transmitted by the raft became almost constant. The variation in load carried by the raft was very
noticeable at S/D=4 as the load carried by the raft was about 65% and 55% for the t= 0.3 m and t= 2 m
respectively. This is due to a high difference in Kf which was about 0.05 and 2.2 for the t= 0.3 m and t= 2
m respectively. On the other hand, Kf was very close in the case of S/D=10 which is about 0.004 and 0.07
for the t= 0.3 m and t= 1.25 m respectively. Therefore, the variation in load carried by the raft was very
narrow at about 75%. This is because at large spacing, the thick raft is more flexible, which produces
much raft soil interaction, compared to the similar raft with less pile spacing. Poulos (2001) reported a
similar percentage of 75% of the load carried by the raft.

MEC-007-7
 80%
t= 0.3 m t= 0.6 m t =1 m t= 1.25 m t= 2 m
70%

60%
Load Carried by Raft, %

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Incremental displacement / final displacement, %

Figure 6. Load carried by raft with different raft thicknesses and S/D=4.

100%
t= 0.3 m t= 0.6 m t= 1 m t= 1.25 m
90%

80%
Load Carried by Raft %

70%

60%

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%
0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%
Incremental displacement / final displacement, %

Figure 7. Load carried by raft with different raft thicknesses and S/D=10.

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 6 Conclusions

The FEM created in this study was able to simulate the results of a centrifuge test for a piled raft
foundation under vertical loading; furthermore, the load for each components obtained from the FEM
were similar to the loads in the centrifuge model. A number of factors that affect the load carried by the
piled raft components will be examined in future studies using this rigorous 3D finite element model that
has been calibrated and verified according to geotechnical centrifuge results. Based on the results of the
3D-FEA, the effect of raft thickness on load carried by raft was evaluated and the following conclusions
can be drawn: (i) the load carried by the raft is lower for a rigid raft (Kf > 10) due to the small interaction
between the raft and subsoil compared to the perfectly flexible raft (Kf < 0.01); (ii) using the spacing
instead of raft width Eq. 4 yields more accuracies in representing the flexibility of the piled raft. More
detailed work has to be conducted to evaluate the performance of a flexible piled raft under different
circumstances such as the number of piles, pile length, different soil layers and loading scheme.

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