ANALYSIS AND PARAMETRIC STUDY OF PILED RAFT FOUNDATION USING FINITE ELEMENT BASED SOFTWARE PLAXIS 3D

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Author/s

SIMENEH ABATE, ALEMAYEHU TEFERRA AND AMEYU TEMESGEN

Abstract

The design of group piles depends on either the group or single pile capacity. In conventional design method such foundations, the pile cap is not considered as a foundation element which makes the approach conservative as the contribution of the raft is not accounted for. Taking in to account of the interactions between different elements of piled raft foundation, an economic design would be attained. This paper presents analysis and parametric study of the piled raft foundation using finite element software PLAXIS 3D. a number of parameters were investigated from the elementsa of the piled raft system and their effect on the response of piled raft system is studied with regard to settlement. Accordingly, the result showed that concentrating more piles at the centerof uniformly loaded pile raft increase the central settlement while decreasing the differential settlement. In line with the current and previous studies, random/strategic placing of piles (for example, around the edge and at the center) does not provide a consistent reduction of settlement as compared to uniformly distributed piles under the pile raft system.