3D Numerical Analysis of Piled-raft Foundations

Concepts & Case studies

Ahmed Elkadi, PhD, M.ASCE

Int. Symposium on Recent Advances in High-Rise Buildings & Geotechnical Analysis 7-Dec-15, Knowledge City, Dubai
Contents

Piled-raft systems

Pile modeling & embedded piles

Single pile calibration

Parametric analysis

Case studies

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 Piled-rafts
Piled Rafts (PR)

Economical foundation option for

circumstances where the performance of
the raft alone does not satisfy the design
requirements.
The addition of a limited number of piles
may improve the ultimate load capacity,
the settlement and differential settlement
performance, and the required thickness
of the raft. (H.G. Poulos, 2001)

www.geomarc.it

Advantages of a piled raft foundation

Limitation of absolute and differential settlements
Reduction in foundation tilting either due to load eccentricity or due to
irregularities in the subsoil
Reduction in raft internal stresses

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 Piled-raft
Piled Raftssystem
SSI of piled-rafts

Interaction influences:
Pile-Soil interaction
Pile-Pile interaction
Raft-Soil interaction
Pile-Raft interaction

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 Design
Piled issues
Rafts

Ensure that the foundation does not undergo excessive displacements

Serviceability limit state (SLS) => rmax < r allowable & qmax < q allowable

Overall stability should be insured

Ultimate limit state (ULS) => Rg* S* (geotechnical)

Key questions:
The relative proportion of load carried by the raft and piles
Which pile configuration reduces total and differential settlements

3D Nonlinear FE Analysis

5
 Analysis
Piled Raftscharacteristics
Desirable characteristics for the analysis of piled rafts
Pile groups subjected to vertical load and
moments in both horizontal directions

Realistic (nonlinear) soil behavior

Non-linear soil-pile interface behavior

Different pile types within group

Raft/cap stiffness incorporated

Structure stiffness incorporated

TC18 report, 2001

6
 Geotechnical report
Soil profiles Pile Tests
Lab (e.g. Triaxial tests) SLT, DLT, RLT, PDA
Field (e.g. CPT, SPT,..)

Numerical Model Calibration

Model Simulation
Parametric Study
Load Combinations

Foundation Design
Serviceability Limit State
Ultimate Limit State
Determine the required structural parameters

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Structural Design
 Pilemodeling
Pile modelingin
concepts
DIANA

Three pile modeling approaches are available:

Solid Element Model
Beam-Solid Connectivity Model
Line-to-Solid Interface Model (embedded pile)

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Solidelement
Solid elementmodel
model

Model = Soil (solid) + Pile (solid) + Interface (surface)

Nodal connectivity is required on pile outer surface

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 Solidelement
Solid elementmodel
model

Surface interface elements for solid-to-solid connection:

Points of attention for solid element models:

Model definition and mesh-generation could be elaborative for large number of piles
Many elements in model large computation times
Pile forces and moments are not directly available in post-processing
Interface behavior: elastic, nonlinear elastic, coulomb friction, and user-supplied material

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Beam-solid
Beam model
solid connectivity model

Model = Soil (solid) + Pile (beam) + Interface (line)

Nodal connectivity is required along pile length

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 Beam-solid
Beam model
solid connectivity model

Line interface elements for beam-to-solid connection:

Points of attention for beam-solid element models:

The nodal compatibility requirement makes geometry modeling and
meshing of the soil elaborative.
For piled rafts with large number of piles, this technique produces
large models large computation times

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 Line-to-solidinterface
Line-to-soild (Embedded pile) model
model

Model = Soil (solid) + Pile (beam) + Interface (line-to-solid)

No nodal connectivity required => well-suited for PRs

Sadek & Shahrour (2004):

A three dimensional embedded beam element for reinforced geomaterials
Shear interaction between beam element and surrounding soil.

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 Line-to-solidinterface
Line-to-soild (Embedded pile) model
model
Line-to-solid interface elements for beam-to-solid connection:

x
Elementary y
Coordinate

Characteristics of line-to-solid interface modeling in DIANA:

Pile and soil geometries and meshes can be specified independently
Intersections of line and solid elements are calculated automatically
Nonlinear friction-slip properties for line-solid interface elements
Mesh refinement requirements for the soil are minimum
reduced computation time

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Point-to-solidinterface
Point-to-soild (Embedded pile) model
model

y x
z

Axis of pile tip bearing

Pile tip sping

Model = Soil (solid) + Pile (beam) + Interface (point-to-solid)

Characteristics of point-to-solid interface modeling in DIANA:

The pile tip can be arbitrarily placed in the solid element
Nonlinear properties for point-solid interface elements

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 Line-to-solid interface model
Pile element parameters
Shaft friction force Input parameters:
per unit length of pile
Ultimate shear force, qu [kN/m]
per unit length of the pile, at reference depth
Shear Stiffness Modulus, Ks [kPa]
Ultimate shear force, Linear elastic penalty stiffness of the interface
qu in the longitudinal direction of the pile.
Ks
Normal Stiffness Modulus, Kn,Kt [kPa]
1 Linear elastic penalty stiffness of the
Relative Slip interface in the transversal direction.
displacement

These input parameters are best extracted from

SLT results after separating shaft friction and
base bearing behavior from the total response

Pile bearing capacity is input in pile elements and not a result of the calculation!
=> Deformation behavior

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Pile element parameters
Pile element parameters
Skin tractions
Force
ts = qs/length = ks * (Du) qult

tn = qn/length = kn * (Du)
Specified bearing capacity
tt = qt/length = kt * (Du)

Tau

Relative
displacement

Displacement Base (tip) bearing capacity

qb = kb * (Du) qbult

Tip
capacity

Relative
displacement

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 Calibration analysis
Verification
Single pile analysis of the Alzey Bridge pile loading test
The pile load test was conducted by Sommer & Hammabach in 1974 to optimize the foundation
design of Alzey Highway Bridge in Germany (El-Mossallamy 1999)

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 Calibration analysis
Verification
Single pile analysis of the Alzey Bridge pile loading test

O. Elkadi (2011):
M.Sc. Thesis Performance of Piled Raft Systems

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Parametric study

D = 1.3m

S/D = 2, 3 & 4

L/D = 5 & 20

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Parametric study

29MM
30MM 15MM

D = 1.3m S/D = 2 L/D = 5

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Parametric study

Pile Group L/D=20 Pile Group L/D=5

D = 1.3m

S/D = 2, 3 & 4

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Parametric study

Piled-raft L/D=20 Piled-raft L/D=5

D = 1.3m

S/D = 2, 3 & 4

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Parametric study

% load carried by raft for different pile layouts in piled-raft

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 Pile behavior
Single pile vs pile group vs piled raft

Group behavior and pile-raft interaction reduce on the one hand the stiffness
of the piles and increase on the other hand their bearing capacity

25
 Pile behavior
Single pile vs pile group vs piled raft

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Case study: Pentominium Tower
Piled raft foundation

Worlds Tallest residential building

> 100 stories tall (>500m)

Preliminary design 233 piles
1.5m Diameter
46-51m long

Hyder Consulting, 2008

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Case study: Pentominium Tower
Piled raft foundation
Site Investigation
Field
8 boreholes 80-125 deep boreholes
standard penetration testing
packer permeability testing
pressuremeter testing at 3 m intervals in
three of the boreholes
geophysics (cross-hole, cross-hole
tomography and down-hole testing)

Lab
cyclic undrained triaxial
cyclic simple shear
stress path triaxial testing
resonant column
constant normal stiffness testing

Kamiran et. al., Proceedings ICE, Civil Engineering, 162, Nov. 2009

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Case study: Pentominium Tower
Piled raft foundation
Model statistics
102355 nodes
6260 beam elements
22200 plate elements
3520 interface elements
6250 pile interface elements
162184 solid wedge elements
10 Load cases

MIDAS GTS software

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Case study: Pentominium Tower
Piled raft foundation
User defined Nonlinear elastic &
Nonlinear Elasto-plastic soil models

MIDAS GTS software

Kamiran et. al., Proceedings ICE, Civil Engineering, 162, Nov. 2009

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Case study: Pentominium Tower
Piled raft foundation

Final design from 36MN => 32MN

Pile length of 42m
Hyder: complex geotechnical finite element analysis has been carried
out, which has been validated using standard geotechnical calculation
techniques. The application of such testing and analysis approach has
resulted in a cost-effective and optimised foundation design solution.
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 Case study: Kingdom Tower
Piled raft foundation
>250 Piles of 1.5m diameter
Varying length: 35m edge, 65m center
Marine sediments underlayed by Sandstone

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jeddah_tower.jpg#/media/File:Jeddah_tower.jpg

Langan International
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 Case study: Kingdom Tower
Piled raft foundation

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 Case study: Kingdom Tower
Piled raft foundation

Deformed shape of vertical displacement

DIANA SOFTWARE
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 Case study: Kingdom Tower
Piled raft foundation

Axial forces in the piles

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Introduction to Pile Analysis
Palazzo Versace & D1 Tower, 2007

Q&A
Shams Tower, 2006

FAD Towers, 2007