PRACTICAL FORMULA FOR ULTIMATE BEARING CAPACITY OF PILED RAFT FOUNDATIONS IN CLAY SOILS

Abstract

Bearing capacity of piled raft foundations in clay soils was studied using elasto-plastic three-dimensional FE analysis. Additional parametric analyses varying pile spacing to the previous study were conducted. Moreover, the bearing capacities of piled rafts obtained from the numerical analyses were compared with the published results from six loading tests of model piled rafts. Based on the previous and present study, it was found that a formula for evaluating ultimate bearing capacity of piled raft foundations, which is approximately equal to 0.8 times the sum of bearing capacities of raft alone and pile group, would be appropriate for practical use.