Numerical Methods in Geotechnical Engineering – Schweiger (ed.

)
© 2006 Taylor & Francis Group, London, ISBN 0-415-40822-9

Modeling various types of reinforced soil by the finite element method –

Application to piled raft foundations

M. Yazdchi, H.C. Yeow & B. Simpson

Ove Arup & Partners, London, UK

ABSTRACT: Reinforcement techniques are increasingly used in different areas of geotechnical engineering
(rock bolting for tunnels, soil nailing for retaining structures and ‘micropilling’ techniques, etc) for ground
improvement. In such structures, inclusions are periodically introduced along one or two directions. The den-
sity of inclusions makes it difficult to treat them separately. From a macromechanical viewpoint, the composite
made of soil and inclusions can be replaced by homogeneous material, whose mechanical properties are deduced
from those of the constituents. A new approach to model reinforced soil and pile groups is proposed in this
paper. The method has the advantage over modeling individual reinforcement/pile in the finite element method
in terms of meshing. In this method, the stiffness of nails/piles and the adhesion between reinforcement and soil
are smeared over reinforcement area and average behavior of the reinforcement is assessed. Examples are shown
of the analyses of a reinforced soil wall and a multi-storey building supported on a large group of piles.

1 INTRODUCTION tackle this problem through FEM (see for example;

Stiff inclusions, such as concrete piles are increasingly
used nowadays in the design of reinforcement solutions
for foundations on soft soils or slope stabilization sys-
tems. Soil nailed embankments; rock-bolted tunnels are
some other examples of reinforced soil systems. How-
ever, studies on modeling aspects of these systems are
few.
Beyond the differences on the installation or con-
struction method of such reinforcements, they undeni-
ably have some common features such as: considerably
stronger heterogeneity of the reinforcing material with
respect to the surrounding soil, and small volume frac-
tion of the reinforcing material. These two characteris-
tics of reinforced soil, associated with the relatively
high number of inclusions, make it very difficult to con-
sider them individually in the finite element analysis in
terms of producing very fine mesh to model these small
cross section inclusions and hence large size finite ele-
ment model. Consequently, little literature has been
devoted to this kind of approach and researchers have
tried to employ the concept of equivalent reinforcement
zone for this kind of structures (Randolph, 1994).
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
As regards to piled raft foundation (the problem of
concern in this paper), apart from a few attempts to
Small and Zhang, 2002 and Reul, 2004), specific meth-
ods have been developed in the last 20 years, such as
the ‘hybrid model’ (Clancy and Randolph, 1993 and
Chow, 1986) in which piles are modeled by beam ele-
ments and the interaction between piles and the soil
mass is taken into account by means of springs that
allow for describing the shear forces at the pile/soil
interface. In addition to time-consuming computational
methods used in these methods, they are restricted
to the elastic behavior of the reinforced soil con-
stituents, which may be a rather crude approximation
as regards to the actual behavior of reinforced founda-
tion systems.
Huang et al (2005) used the 3D finite difference
method to model a constructed geosynthetic-reinforced
pile supported embankment in Germany. They modeled
the piles using pile elements and geogrids were mod-
eled using 2D elements.
Kotake et al (2001) used beam elements to model
reinforced soil, without allowing friction between soil
and reinforcement. A fairly similar approach was
adopted by Guler and Demirkan (2003).
Albert and Kovacs (2003) have adopted a rather sim-
ple method by introducing a subgrade model for rein-
forced soil.
The response of an embankment on soft clay
was investigated by finite element method using
CRISP program by Kamal et al (2005). As most
other researches, they used beam elements to model

829
reinforcement without simulating the interface between
soil and reinforcement.
Recently, a ‘multiphase model’ has been proposed
by de Buhan and Sudret (2000) and de Buhan and
Sudret (2001) allowing modeling of linear elastic inclu-
sions ignoring their flexural and shear stiffness and
considering axial stiffness of reinforcement elements,
where perfect bonding between soil and pile was
assumed and no allowance was made for the piles to
slip through the soil. For many applications such as
reinforced earth embankments or soil-nailed slopes
this assumption is adequate, but for a piled raft foun-
dation shear and flexural stiffness of the piles could
play a decisive role in some situations such as in the
case of a foundation subjected to lateral loading;
otherwise for vertical loading, assuming only axial
stiffness of the piles appears to be adequate.
This paper reports the methodology based on a
so-called macromodel to model piled raft foundations.
According to this model, a region of soil reinforced by
dense and regularly distributed inclusions, such as
piles, is described as the superposition of two continu-
ous media, called ‘base material’ and ‘reinforcing
medium’, respectively. The base material has the same
properties as the soil, while the reinforcing medium is
modeled as a homogenized material super-imposed on
top of the base material. The aim of the present work is
to present a realistic and simplified numerical method
for the analysis and design of reinforced soil systems.
The reinforced soil model has been implemented
into Oasys finite element SAFE program.
3 PROBLEM STATEMENT
3.1 Description of the model
Figure 1a shows a description of the reinforced soil
on the microscopic scale, where inclusions are treated
as individual elements embedded in the native soil. On
the other hand, according to the macromodel approach,
the composite reinforced soil system may be regarded
as the superposition of two continuous media, called
‘base material’ and ‘reinforcing material’, respectively.
The base material and reinforcing material are geo-
metrically coincident at any node but with different
constitutive laws, as shown in Figure 1b. The reinforce-
ment is represented as an averaged (or “smeared”)
effect. Slip between the reinforcement and soil is also
modeled.
3.2 Numerical implementation of the model
The physics behind the method of analysis directly
relates the shear passing between soil and reinforce-
ment to the amount of slip, thus:
The limiting shear stress is set by the adhesion and
friction data for the reinforcement, and then the limiting
830
slip S between the reinforcement and the soil needs to
be determined.
The behaviour of the reinforcement is assumed to
be smeared, and it stiffness can be linear or non-linear.
This means that its stiffness is force per unit area of soil
(in units of stress), and the adhesion between reinfore-
ment and soil is force/unit area of soil /length of relative
movement (or stress/length).
Beside the usual parameters used to model soil,
one extra parameter which governs the shear resist-
ance between reinforcement and soil is used.
The program works by storing the displacement of
the reinforcement separately from that of the soil. The
displacement of the reinforcement is calculated by
summing strains from nodes which are bonded to the
main mesh (e.g. a pile cap). If necessary, the reinforce-
ment could be bonded to an element which is extremely
flexible and so provides no restraint to the end of the
reinforcement.
From these relative displacements, the shear stress
passing between soil and reinforcement is computed,
and this gives the gradient of normal stress in the rein-
forcement. The normal stresses themselves are then
computed by working, iteratively, along the reinforce-
ment from a free end at which the stress is zero.
The iterative process operates as follows:
1. At iteration 1, the presence of the reinforcement is
considered and displacements of the ground are
calculated.
2. The displacement of the reinforcement is then com-
puted, starting from the bonded end (where displace-
ments are the same as those of the corresponding
Base material
Pile-soil system
Individual piles
(a)
Two homogenised material
(b)
Figure 1. Description of the reinforced material
(a) Micromodel, (b) Macromodel.
 elements), and working along the length of the
reinforcement. The incremental displacements are
computed from the incremental stresses in the rein-
forcement, using the correct stiffness. The stiffness
of reinforcement must not be changed between runs.
3. Hence the relative displacement of the soil and
reinforcement are known, and the shear passing
between them can be computed, from the diagram
below (see Figure 2). This shear gives the gradient
of stress in the reinforcement.
4. Starting from the free end of the reinforcement,
and using the gradients, the stress in the reinforce-
ment is computed.
5. This whole process is repeated iteratively.
The program achieves a pseudo-3D solution in a
2D mesh by adding iterative processes to the normal
finite element computation.
At the end of each increment, the program outputs
displacements of the soil and reinforcement nodes,
and the stresses at the nodes joining elements of rein-
forcement. The finite element process ensures that
equilibrium is maintained between the base material
and reinforcing medium. The model is validated
by checking the gradient of direct stress in the rein-
forcement in relation to the relative displacements
of nodes of the base material and the reinforcing
medium. This gradient must be consistent with the
shear stress passing between the two materials, as
defined by Figure 2.
The program can have two sets of reinforcement
overlying each other and this could be extended to
more if needed.
Prestressing forces of reinforcement (e.g. into a set
of piles) can be applied.
It was assumed that the pile group has significant
axial stiffness but very low resistance to bending and
this does not cause a problem as long as applied loads
are vertical.
Shear stress
–S
S Slip
Figure 2. Slip between soil and reinforcement.
831
4 PROBLEM DESCRIPTION
The piled raft foundation to be analyzed is represented
in Figure 3.
This has been used to investigate a settlement prob-
lem of a building with original large diameter bored
piles, which were overloaded, and additional minipiles
provided as underpinning.
The building is modeled as axisymmetric, as shown
in Figure 4. The radius of core area is 12 m and that of
the whole building is 24 m. The following construc-
tion sequence was assumed in the analysis:
Stage 1: Initialization of the soil
Stage 2: Construction of the original piles
Stage 3: Construction of the building
Stage 4: Construction of the minipiles and jacking –
prestressing of these piles
Stage 5: Application of future loads
Soil stratigraphy is underlain at depth by hard clay
which in turn is overlain by soft clay with some made
ground.
The region of soil located below the footing has
been reinforced by a group of 20 m long piles bored
through the soft clay and penetrating into the hard
clay to a depth of 5 m.
The meshing shown in Figure 4 was used in the
finite element analysis. The ground was discretized
into eight-nodded quadrilateral elements. The vicinity
of the footing was discretized by finer elements to
capture the deformation and failure modes in these
critical zones.
As for the boundaries of the ground, vertical rollers
were placed along the footing centerline and fixed
conditions were used along the bottom and other lat-
eral boundaries of the analysis domain.
The soil is modeled as a Mohr-Coulomb material
and the reinforcing elements (piles) are modeled as
linear elastic material.
A finite element mesh of the system comprising
eight-nodded quadrilateral elements is shown in
Figure 3. Quite large elements have been used for this
macromodel; individual modeling of each pile would
have required a much more refined discretization of
The building
The core of the
building
Soil model
Figure 3. Simplification in the finite element model.
Figure 4. Model piles as reinforcement in SAFE.

100.0
20.0

0.0 Construction of building

-20.0 90.0
Settlement (mm)

-40.0 Minipiles
Install original piles Jacking
-60.0 80.0
-80.0

-100.0
70.0
-120.0 Iinstall minipiles

-140.0
Elevation (m)

0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 60.0
Different increments of analysis
Ground
Figure 5. Settlement of building during development. 50.0

the model in the piled area, in order to capture the com- 40.0
plex interactions prevailing between the soil and the Original piles
dense network of piles.
Settlement of the building throughout the develop- 30.0
ment of the site could be investigated. Figure 5 shows
the settlement of the building at various stages of
20.0
development. Although continued settlement of the
0.0 500.0 1000.0 1500.0 2000.0
building is computed before installation of the mini-
Total stress (kPa)
piles (as observed), settlement under future loading is
computed to be minimal with the minipiles in place.
Figure 6. Stresses in the ground and the piles.
Figure 6 shows the stresses in the soil, the original
piles and additional piles at a later stage of the devel-
opment. At this stage, dissipation of pore water pressure Sections of the plot at which the shaft adhesion of the
in the soft clay led to negative skin friction, which is piles is fully mobilised are seen by limiting gradients,
seen by forces in the piles increasing with depth. as marked on Figure 6.

832
5 CONCLUSIONS
The macromodel approach presented in this paper to
describe behavior of geomaterials reinforced by linear
inclusions, allows for simulation and design of any
reinforced soil system, leading to a spectacular reduc-
tion of the computational time and complexities.
The greater the number of inclusions in the structure,
the more accurate the macromodel approach. Whereas
the processing time increases with the number of piles
in the hybrid or direct methods, it is constant in the
macromodel, since only the volume fraction of the
reinforcement phase has to be modified and more
importantly, finite element meshing for the macro-
model is very simplified in compare with the direct
methods.
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