8 Behaviour of piled raft foundations

8.1 General features of foundations

When the basement slabs for upper structure and the piles foundation of the structure together
support the load of the upper structure, they form a piled-raft foundation.
In cases where the effect of the basement slabs as supporting force is not significant or the
effect is not accounted in computation, the foundation is treated as a pile foundation in
engineering design and safety check.
In cases where the basement slabs as the main part to carry the load from the upper structure,
the foundation is considered as a raft.
The materials introduced in this lecture note are mainly based on the worked reported by
Poulos (2001) and Small (2001).

The performance of a typical foundation is

illustrated in the Fig (Poulos, 2001). curve 2
Curve 0: The load is carried by the raft only (a
raft foundation);
curve 1
Load

Curve 1: The load is carried by the pile

foundation only (a pile foundation);
In this case, the raft may be assumed totally curve 0
rigid or totally flexible.
Curve 2: The load is carried by the pile and the
raft together (a piled-raft foundation).

Settlement
As compared with a pile foundation, both the
bearing capacity and stiffness to resistance settlement are clearly improved by a piled-raft
foundation. Therefore, a piled-raft foundation is an attractive choice for floating pile
foundations where the underneath soil is very compressible and has a very low strength.
Because of the need for basement below structure, the positive effect of the raft is
increasingly taken into consideration in the design of foundations, particularly when the
strength and stiffness of the pile foundation are not enough. For an example, the Emirate
Twin Towers in Dubai and the Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur are designed with the concept
of piled raft foundations.

8.2 Design concepts for piled raft foundations

In summary, the following issues need to be considered.
(1) Bearing capacity;
(2) Settlement (maximum settlement and differential settlement);
(3) Raft moments and shears;
(4) Loads and moments on the piles.
A brief description of the design process of piled-rafts is given in the next section.
8.3 Design process
Three main stages for the design of piled-raft foundations are summarised by Poulos (2001).
They are (1) preliminary design stage, (2) assessment of piling requirement, and (3) final
detailed design stage.

8.3.1 Preliminary design stage

Firstly, estimations are made with respect to the performance of the raft without piles.
(1) If the raft can only carry a small portion of the load, then pile foundation is needed for
both carrying the load and reducing the settlement.
(2) If the raft can carry almost all the load but with unacceptable settlement (uniform
settlement or differential settlement), then pile foundation is introduced as settlement
reducer.
Secondarily, a piled-raft foundation is introduced in the design mainly for two reasons (1) the
strength and stiffness of the pile foundation is not adequate, and (2) the use of a piled raft
foundation is economical.
In the preliminary design stages, the bearing capacity and settlement of the foundation are
estimated by the following methods.

(A) Estimate the vertical bearing capacity of the piled raft

The lesser of the following two values is taken as the ultimate bearing capacity of the piled-
raft,
(1) The sum of the ultimate bearing capacity of the raft plus all the plies, and
(2) The ultimate capacity of a block containing the piles and the raft, plus that of the
portion of the raft outside the periphery of the plies.

(B) Estimate the load and settlement behaviour of the piled raft
The load and settlement behaviour of a
piled raft is usually estimated by c
empirical or semi-empirical equations.
Some widely used ones are proposed by III
Poulos and Davis (1980), and by
Randolph (1994). II
b
Load

The simple and approximate method for

calculating the vertical settlement of piled
raft proposed by Randolph (1994) is
introduced here.
Firstly, the stiffness of a piled raft is I
given by
K + K r (1 − α cp )
K pr = p a
1 − α cp2 K r K p
K : stiffness of the piled raft; Settlement
pr
Kp: stiffness of the pile group;
Kr: stiffness of the raft alone;
αcp: pile-raft interaction factor.
The values for Kp and Kr can be estimated by elasticity. Various proposals for the estimation
of Kp and Kr can be found from reports on the behaviour of plied rafts.
The pile-raft interaction factor αcp is estimated by
 ln⎛⎜ c ⎞⎟
r
α cp = 1 − ⎝ 0 ⎠
r
ζ
rc: average radius of the pile cap (corresponding to the raft area divided by the number of
piles);
rc: radius of the pile;
⎧ 0.25 + ξ [2.5 ρ (1 − ν ) − 0.25]L ⎫
ζ = ln ⎨ ⎬
⎩ r0 ⎭
Where L is the length of the plie, ν is Poisson’s ratio, and
E E
ξ = sl , ρ = sav
Esb Esl
Esl: Young’s modulus of the soil at the level of pile tip;
Esb: Young’s modulus of the soil at the level of pile base;
Esav: average Young’s modulus of the soil along the pile shaft.
The sharing of the load between raft and pile group is estimated by the following expression
Pr K r (1 − α cp )
= =Χ
Pt K p + K r (1 − α cp )
Pr: load carried by raft;
Pt: total load.
By using the above equations for the stiffness and the sharing of the total load between the
pile group and the raft, a tri-linear load and settlement relationship for plied rafts can be
obtained.
Stage 1 (behaviour ab): both the pile group and the raft behave elastically. The stiffness is the
stiffness of the pile group. This stiffness governs the load settlement curve until the capacity
of the pile group is fully mobilized. Based on the sharing of the load equation, the load limit
for this stage is
P
Pl = up
1− Χ
Pup: ultimate bearing capacity of the pile group
Stage 2 (behaviour bc): the capacity of the pile group is fully utilized and the raft behave
elastically. The stiffness is the stiffness of the raft. At the end of this stage, the piled raft fails
and it can no longer provide any resistance to deformation.
It should be noted that the method introduced above are very approximate and is used for
preliminary analysis only.

8.3.2 Assessment of piling requirement

In order to assess piling requirement, it is necessary to
work out the detailed pattern of load and moment applied column
to the foundation. However, in most of methods currently
employed in simplified computations, uniform Raft
distribution of load over the raft area is generally
assumed. Thus, this is not performed.
Soil

In the following situations, piles are needed,

(1) if the maximum moment in the raft below the column exceeds the allowable value for the
raft,
(2) if the maximum shear in the raft below the column exceeds the allowable value for the
raft,
(3) if the maximum contact pressure in the raft below the column exceeds the allowable
design value for the soil,
(3) if the local settlement below the column exceeds the allowable value.

8.3.3 Final detailed design stage

In this stage of design, the determination of the following quantities with reasonable accuracy
is required:
(1) Assess the detailed distribution of settlement and the optimum locations and arrangement
of piles;
(2) Find out the raft bending moment and shears;
(3)Find out the loads and moments on the plies.

The methods currently used in geotechnical engineering practice are:

(1) Simple plate on springs
In the method piles are treated as springs with the raft treated as a plate.
(2) Boundary element methods
(3) Finite layer methods
N=45
(4) 2D finite element methods or 2D finite difference
methods N=25
Load

N=15
(5) 3D finite element methods
N=9

N=3

8.4 A Number of points N=0

8.4.1 The effect of piles in a piled raft foundation Settlement

A typical load-settlement curve for a piled-raft with
the number of piles is shown in the Fig. (analytical result).
(1) The bearing capacity of the foundation increases with the number of piles and the
settlement of the foundation decreases with the number of foundations. (2) It is seen that
efficiency of the piles decreases when the number of the piles reach a certain value.
Maximum settlement

8.4.2 The effect of raft thickness

A typical maximum settlement with the thickness of
raft and the number of piles is shown in the Fig. N=0

(analytical result). N=3

(1) The maximum settlement of the foundation
decreases with the thickness of the raft and decreases N=9
N=15
with the number of piles. N=45
(2) The decrement is not significant when both the
thickness of the raft and the number of the plies
Raft thickness
reach a critical value.
8.4.3 Deficiency in traditional simple methods
The traditional spring theory or Winkler models can lead to erroneous answers, and the
method should be used with caution. Advanced numerical analysis such as finite layer method
or finite element method is more appropriate.

8.4.4 Situations where a piled raft foundation not needed

(1) Soil at or near the surface is very soft clay or very loose sand;
(2) Rafts may lose contact with ground soil such very compressible soils;
(3) Because of the moment of soil such as swelling behaviour soil at the ground may apply
pressure on the raft.

References for pile foundations

Taiebat H. A., Applied geotechnics, lecture notes, University of New South Wales, Australia.
Poulos H. G., lecture notes on pile foundation, University of Sydney, Australia.
Airey D. , lecture notes on pile foundation, University of Sydney, Australia.
Liyanapathirana D. S., lecture notes on pile foundation, University of Western Sydney,
Australia.
Poulos H. G. and Davis E. H. (1980), Pile foundation analysis and design, John Wiley and
Sons, New York.
Poulos H. G. (2001), Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental engineering handbook, Rowe ed.
Poulos H. G. (2001), “Piled raft foundation: design and application”, Geotechnique, Vol.
51(2), pp.95-112.
Small J (2001), “Soil-structure interaction”, E H Davis Memorial lecture.
Fleming W. G. K., Weltman A. j., Randolph M. F. and Elson W. K. (1992), Piling
Engineering, Halsted Press, New York.
Randolph M.F. (1994), “ Design methods for pile group and piled-rafts”, Proc. of the 13th
International Conference on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, pp.61-82.
Hemsley J. A. (2000), Elastic analysis of raft foundation, Thomas Telford, London.
Australia standard AS 2159-1995 piling-design and installation standards Australia.