Acknowledgement

We would like to express our special thanks of gratitude to our lecturer, Dr.
Norazzlina M. Sadon for giving us the opportunities to enhance and develop both
theoretical and practical knowledge on foundation engineering. During this project, we
learn something new about raft foundation. Her continuous guidance and help had
smoothened out the overall progress of the project. Her lectures and time has filled us up
with so much knowledge and a better understanding about foundation engineering. This
project had given us the hands-on experience in raft foundation system which will be
very useful for us in the future as a geotechnical engineer.

Next, we would also thankful and grateful to our parents for supporting us from
the beginning of this project until the finishing line. Without them, we would not be
easily and able to go through the project which has been successfully done by us.

In addition, our friends help did ease our thoughts and motivates us when we
faced difficulties. We also would like to thanks our fellow classmates for both direct and
indirect helps throughout the project session. Without any help from the respective
people, we doubt that we will be able to complete the task given.

Executive Summary

Based on our report, we are going to present our finding and design on raft
foundation. This project is regarding the mixed development comprises of residential
and commercial units at site of about 800 acres which have been proposed at Tabuan
Jaya. The site investigation has revealed that the upper firm clays are underlain at about
5m soft silty clay. Whereas, from the designer office, the raft foundation will be adopted
for the low-rise buildings construction. As a geotechnical engineer, we were asked to
provide all the details and calculation about the design. The purpose of this project is to
develop our critical thinking and brainstorming which is much needed in detail design of
raft foundation. This also involves on generation full range of alternatives ways to
evaluate and analyse on how to successfully design the raft foundation.

Introduction

Raft foundation is a thick concrete slab reinforced with steel which covers the
entire contact area of the structure like a thick floor. Sometimes area covered by raft
may be greater than the contact area depending on the bearing capacity of the soil
underneath. The purpose or function of the raft foundation is to spread the load of the
entire area of the site.
 Basically, a raft foundation usually consists of a concrete slab which extends
over the entire area. Is may be stiffened by ribs or beams incorporated into the
foundation. Thus, the entire foundation will act as a unit due to concrete and heavily
reinforced steel which made up the beams. One of the advantage of raft foundations is to
reduce differential settlements as the concrete slab resists different movement between
loading positions.

The raft foundation is used when there are heavy column loads which requires
large bases. This is because the bearing capacity of soil is low, resulting larger base
needed. They are commonly used on soft compressible sub soil such as pit or soft clay.

In this project, the raft foundation plan is shown below. The soil pressure is
located at points A, B, C, D, E and F. The method to determine the reinforcement
requirements in y-direction is by dividing the raft foundation into three strips, AGHF (B 1
= 4.25m), GIJH (B2 = 8.00m), ICDJ (B3 = 4.25m).

All the parameters are;

f c = 20.7 MN/m2
fy = 20.7 MN/m2
load factor = 1.5