Gary et a Journal Rock Mechanic and Gente Engineering 52013) 188-308 a1 ‘Sunt ofthe mode tests on unpled and pled rat Uapledat ox30-05 = = z att eal ple 2030405, 1 50 - 3 ato eal pes 2030405, 4 so 3 3 a9 cena ples 0.30405, 6 so 3 3 3. Testing setup components 21, Steel tank and main frame Te test mold consists ofa steel tankand amain frame. The steel tank rests on a movable rolling frame base. The tank was 1.0m Tong, 1.0m wide. and 1.0m high. The tank was provided by four horizontal stiffeners (L40 « 40) at 0,20 cm, 50cm, and 85cm levels from the bottombase ofthe tank as shown in Fig. 4. The main frame ‘was 150 cm in clear width, 215 cm n clear height, and consisted of ‘wo vertical columns and one horizontal beam as shown in Fig. 4 32. Measuring devices ‘Three dial gauges of 0.01 mm accuracy were used to measure the vertical settlements, One dial gauge was located near the center Ane two were located a the middle sides ofthe raft-The dial gauges ‘were fixed tothe raft by means of steel rods. The steel rod consisted ofavertical rod connected tothe horizontal beam of the main frame and a horizontal rod which carried the dial gauge, The two rods ‘were connected to each other by hollow tubes which had two screw _roovesas showin Fig, 5. This od systemhad the ability to support the dial gauge at any horizontal plane. Loads were applied by a hydraulic jack fixed a the middle of the horizontal beam of the main frame as shown in Figs. 4 and 5. The hydraulic ack was used manually to produce the incremental oad, Calibrated proving rings with different capacities were attached to the jack to measure the loads. During tests on single pile a vertical loading bat was attached to the proving ring to produce point central vertical load. During tests on unpiled raft and central piled raft, the vertical loading bar ‘transmitted the jack load to the tested raft model through a spe- cial loading cap. The loading cap was composed of a square steel plate, of dimensions 30 cm x 30.cm x 2m. supported by nine steel columns, Each column was2.54 cmin diameter and 26 cminheighs, ‘The central spacing between columns was 10cm as shown in Rig 6 4, Test procedures (1) Each experiment started with placing the sand sol in the steel tank in layers. The maximum layer thickness was 10cm. The {otal height of the tank was divided into intervals from the inner side by making signs every 10cm height to help to puta specified weight in a specified volume to get the required sand ensity by compaction, A pre-weighted quantity of sand was compacted by means ofa specified compaction tool inthe steel tank, The compaction continued until the soil was compacted {o fill the first 10cm layer. A steel arm with circular plate of8 1 @) 1 Ecary et a Jounal of Rok Mechanic and Getehnil Engineering 5 (2013) 388. ‘0m Top mut —_———___. Steel eap oy (1.5 em thickness) 2 ‘Copper weld Bottom nut Diamete10 mm Stel conical 1 Fig 5. Connection berween the ple andthe ap 15cm in diameter and 0.8cm in thickness was used for com- paction. The process was repeated until reaching the height of ‘the steel tank (,e, 95.m), The final soil layer was Sem thick to avoid soil overflowing during the compaction process. ) For the cases of central piled rat, wooden templates were used to locate the piles in the correct positions, and then each pile ‘was inserted vertically into the sand by driving witha steady suecession of bellows on the top ofthe pile using a steel ham- ‘mer weighting 2 kg The inclinations of the piles were checked carefully by alevel during driving, The sequence o piles instal- lation started with the inner pile, then corner piles, and finally the edges piles. {Alter the installation of ples tothe required depth, the wooden templates were removed. Then, the raft model was placed on. ‘the sand surface and the horizontality of the raft model was adjusted by a level and each pile was connected! to the raft model by two nuts. ) The loading cap was placed on the raft. Then, three dial gauges ‘were located (one dial gauge near the center and two at the middle sides ofthe raft) ) A vertical loading bar and a calibrated proving ring, of SON, ‘maximum capacity, were connected to the hydraulic jack. The jack arm was lowered slowly toward the loading cap, until ‘the dial gauge of the proving ring started to respond, The raft ‘model was then loaded incrementally by using the hydraulic jack. The vertical settlements were recorded at the end of each load increment The rate of loading was0.1 kN/min. The loading, ‘was continued til the settlement reached about 25 mm, fis A\ Hydaatok Tar )\ wating ames Stee pe 5. Raft-sol stiffness ratio “The shear modulus ofthe tested sand soil was determined from backanalysisofthe measured load-settlement curves for single pile with I/D ratio of 50. The shear modulus of sand soil was assumed to change linearly withthe depth from 300 kPa atthe ground sur- face (ie. beneath the model raft} to G; at the end of the pile length, The computer program PGROUP developed by F1-Garhy (2002) was used to predict the elastic load-settlement curve of single pile at different values of G;The best match between measured and pre- dicted values was obtained at the value of G, equal to 500kPa, Therefore, the value of shear modulus, G, in kPa at any depth, 2 Fi.S Photograph sowing loin cap and sessing devicesGary et a Jounal feck Mechanic an Ge 300300156 1056 Verve below the ground surface can be determined from the following linear equation’ G = 300 + 4002 o Poisson's ratio of the tested sand soilwas taken as0.30asrecom- ‘mended by Bovles (2001), The modulus of elasticity of the tested soil, ,, canbe calculated from ratio: soil shear modulus and Poisson's 261+») @ “The relative exibility ofa rafts expressed by the raft-solstif- ness ratio, i, proposed by Hain and Lee (1978) Be OAT where B and L are the width and length of the raft, respectively and is the raft thickness, The values of Kxranging from 0.01 to 10 cover very flexible to very stiff rafts (Hain and Lee, 1978). The raftsoil stiffness ratios forthe tested raft models were calculated by Eq. (2) In the calculation of Kis, the modulus of elasticity at 2 depth of an equivalent circular raft rads (ie. 17cm) was used, a8 recommended by Horikoshi sind Randolph (1999) The vales of Kis forthe tested raft models are presented in Table 2 8) kent Baw (a) 6, Results and discussions ‘The experimental results obtained from the laboratory tests are analyzed and discussed inthis section, The shapes of the measured Toad-settlement curves indicate that the load at failure was not achieved. Therefore, the allowable and the ultimate raft capaci- ties were determined from the load-average settlements of 10 mm and 25mm, respectively. The settlement values of 10mm and 25mmare considered acceptable for allowable and ultimate loads (Bowles, 2001), 6.1. Unpiled raft ‘The experimental Joad-average settlement curves for the unpiled raft models of different relative stiffness Ki, ae ilhistrated sn Fig. 6. From Fig. 6, it can be noted that the inerease in raft rela- tive stiffness causes slight increase in the load carrying capacity of ‘unpiled raft with a reduction in settlement (eg, at 25mm average settlement, the increase of raft relative stiffness from 0.29 to 3.13 causes an increase in the rat load by 5.5% and the increase of raft relative stifness from 0.39 to 10.56 causes an increase in the raft load by 13%). ‘The differential settlement ofa square rafts defined asthe dif- ference between settlements a the center and the mid-side points ofthe raft The results ofthe present tests indicate thatthe raft with K,s equal to 10.56 almost had no differential settlement. This result fs expected because the raft with K equal to 10.56 is classified as too rigid (Hain and Lee, 1978) ‘mn this paper, the differential settlement is normalized by the average settlement of the raft. Fig. 7 shows the variation of nor- ‘malized differential setlement with the relative stifness of the raft. As expected, the normalized differential settlement decreases as the raft relative stifiness increases, Load an) ° nr 0 Fig 6. Experimental loa.avecage element eaves for snpied salts 62. Raft on settlement reducing piles Inthe following sections, the effects of number of pls, /D ratio, nd raft relative stiffness, Kon the behavior of raft on settlement reducing piles are analyzed and discussed, 621. Bffect of number of ples "igs. 8-16 show the load-average settlement curves forall the studied cases of unpiled rafts and rafts on settlement reducing piles. ‘As shown in these figures, the load carrying capacity of piled raft increases as the number of settlement reducing piles increases, for all the studied eases. This increase is mainly due tothe increase in the portion of load carried by the central piles due tothe increase of the number of piles. Inthis study, the improvement in the load capacity of the raft at 0mm and 25 mm settlements, due tothe presence of setlement aT