Analysis of Pile-Raft Foundations with 3D Finite-Element Method

Lisa J. Novak1, Lymon C. Reese2, Honorary Member, ASCE, and Shin-Tower Wang3
1
Structural Engineer, Texas Department of Transportation, Austin, Texas
2
Professor Emeritus, Dept. of Civil Engineering, The Univ. of Texas, Austin, Texas
3
Project Manager, Ensoft, Inc./Lymon C. Reese & Associates, Austin, Texas

Abstract
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One of the most challenging problems in soil-structure interaction is the piled

raft. Piled-raft foundations for important high-rise buildings have proved to be a
viable alternative to conventional pile foundations or mat foundations. The concept
of using piled raft foundation is that the combined foundation is able to support the
applied axial loading with an appropriate factor of safety and that the settlement of
the combined foundation at working load is tolerable. In some instances the piles are
spaced uniformly and in other cases are spaced strategically to achieve a more
uniform settlement of the mat.

Two strong reasons dictate the use of the 3D Finite Element Method (FEM):
(1) the problem is so complex that simplified methods cannot model the problem
correctly; and (2) codes for the FEM are available, powerful, and capable of being run
on the personal computer. Thus, the modeling of the raft, piles, and supporting soil as
a soil-structure-interaction problem using FEM is a feasible method. Two piled-raft
foundations were analyzed using the FEM program. Comparisons were made
between experimental and analytical results and the FEM was shown to yield
excellent results for the cases analyzed.

Introduction

The term piled raft originated in Europe where engineers conceived the idea
of designing the foundation for high-rise buildings using a mat (raft) resting on the
ground with piles supporting the mat (Fig. 1). The concept was that the combined
foundation would be sufficient to support the applied axial loading with an
appropriate factor of safety and that the settlement of the combined foundation at
working load would be acceptable. The settlement of a mat foundation is dish shaped
with the largest settlement at the center of the mat. In achieving a more uniform
settlement of a structure, suggestions have been made that the piles be clustered near
the center of the mat.

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Figure 1. High-rise buildings in Frankfurt with piled raft foundations (after El-
Mossallamy and Franke, 1997).

The method was applied to the design of foundations for high-rise buildings in
Frankfurt, Germany, and has been described by Sommer et al (1985) and by Franke
(1991). Franke described the design of the foundations for four high-rise buildings on
Frankfurt clay, presented information on instrumentation used in some cases, and
gave results of the measurement of settlement. Similar information is available for a
high-rise building constructed in Japan as reported by Yamashita and Yamada (1998).

Many proposals have been made for methods of analysis for the piled raft.
These methods have been summarized by Poulos (2001) in a report from Technical
Committee TC18 of the International Society of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical
Engineering. Poulos noted that there were three broad classes of methods of analysis:
simplified calculation methods; approximate computer-based methods; and more
rigorous computer-based methods. The writers believe that the feasible method of
analysis is the three-dimensional, linear/nonlinear, finite-element method (FEM).

Two strong reasons dictate the use of the 3Dimensional FEM: (1) the problem
is so complex that simplified methods cannot model the problem correctly; and (2)
codes for the FEM are available, powerful, and capable of being run on the personal
computer. Several three-dimensional FEM computer programs are available for
solving those complicated problems involving soil-structure interaction. This study

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 used Microsoft Windows-based finite-element software that can be executed
efficiently on a notebook computer.

With regard to modeling the problem, the vertical stress on the surface of the
soil from the mat modifies pile response in a dramatic way because the resistance of a
pile to axial loading is dependent on the lateral stress in the soil. The prediction of
the influence of the vertical stress from the mat on the lateral stress at every point
along the length of each of the piles for all ranges of loading is beyond the capability
of any simplified method. Further, the presence of the piles as reinforcement of the
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soil complicates the behavior of the raft.

To conduct an investigation of the accuracy of 3D FEM in predicting the soil-

structure interaction of a piled raft, the foundations of two high-rise buildings were
modeled. The first piled raft is the foundation of building Westendstrasse 1 (see Fig.
1), located in Frankfurt, Germany. The second piled raft is the foundation of a
building located in Urawa City, Japan. Both foundations have been studied
previously using various methods of analysis.

Fundamental Concept of Soil-Structure Interaction

Soil-structure interaction (SSI) is the prediction of the response of soil to the

loading of a structure as a function of deflection and the corresponding response of
the structure. The soil may be fine-grained, coarse grained, or rock. The structure
may be a mat, a footing, a caisson, or a pile. The loading may be seismic, dynamic,
short-term, sustained, or cyclic.

Analysis of the piled raft is one of the most challenging problems in soil-
structure interaction. A piled raft foundation composes conventional piles and a rigid
raft as shown in Fig. 2. Considering each of these foundation elements separately
leads to the conclusion that interaction is inevitable. The mat alone is certainly
affected by the presence of the piles because the foundation is much stiffer than with
the soil alone. The piles alone are affected by the earth pressure from the raft because
the increased lateral stresses on the piles affects the capacity in side resistance. The
problem can be solved by use of the finite-element method where appropriate shell
elements or solid elements can be used for modeling the raft. Beam elements can be
used for modeling piles. The soil around the piled raft system can be conveniently
modeled as solid elements. The modern FEM software also provides advanced
contact elements for modeling the interface between the pile/raft and soil.

The significance of 3D FEM analysis is that detailed stress distribution for the
foundation system can be revealed for investigation. As shown in Fig. 3, the stress
bulbs near the tips of the piles clearly indicate the load has transferred to the tip of the
piles because weak soil layers near the ground surface cannot transfer must load from
the piles to the soil.

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Figure 2. Soil-structure interaction of a piled raft structure.

Figure 3. Stress bulb region produced by a piled raft system.

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 Case Study in Frankfurt, Germany

High-rise buildings in Frankfurt, Germany were founded on piled rafts and

extensive observations were made of the behavior of the foundations (El-Mossallamy
and Franke, 1997; Franke, 1991, Franke, et al, 1994). One of those buildings was
Westendstrasse 1. The plan of the foundation is shown in Fig. 4. The foundation
supported a tower of approximately 208 m in height. The raft rests on 40 piles, which
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are 1.3 m in diameter and extend 30.0 m below the raft. The pile layout is shown in
Fig. 4. The foundation is approximately 47 m by 62 m in area. The raft is 4.5 m
thick in the center, and decreases to 3.0 m at the edges.

The soils at the site of Westendstrasse 1 consist of a 6 to 8 m thick bed of

gravely sand followed by a stratum of over-consolidated stiff plastic clay, known as
Frankfurt clay. The piled raft was constructed both below the gravely sand and the
water table, solely resting on the Frankfurt clay. The soil modulus under primary
loading varies by depth according to the equation Es = 7.0 + 2.45 Z [MN/m2], where
Z is the depth from the top of the layer in meters.

Figure 4. Pile layout and position of measuring devices of the building

Westendstrasse 1 (after El-Mossallamy and Franke, 1997).

The instruments indicated in the figure allowed the authors to determine the
load shared by the raft and the piles. In terms of short-term settlement, the raft is far
more flexible than the piles so the addition of piles to the foundation affected

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 favorably the settlement of the structure. The computer program AMPS (2004) was
used to construct the models and analyze the behavior of the system.

Based on the foundation layout shown in Fig. 5, the model was created
graphically on the windows screen by using 3D modeling tools. The piles are shown
in their respective positions, and for purposes of the analysis the thickness of the raft
was selected as 4.5m. The 3D mesh used to model the foundation and the soil layers
is shown in Fig. 6.
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Figure 5. Model of piled raft foundation.

As noted above, the soil is an over-consolidated stiff plastic clay, with a

linearly increasing modulus of deformation. As noted earlier and as shown below,
the soil was assumed to consist of three layers, each with a constant modulus of
deformation with values equal to the average of the predicted modulus for the layer.

The mesh was created using AMPS’ automatic tetrahedron FlexMesh method.
The piled raft was inserted into the soil domain using a solid modeling boundary
preserving non-regular Boolean method. A mesh size of 10 was specified on the
piled raft, and 40 for the overall model. The FlexMesh process first generates the
surface triangle mesh, then a 3D constrained Delauny triangulation algorithm is used
to generate the tetrahedron cells from the surface mesh. The final model is shown in
Fig. 6.

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Figure 6. View of 3D mesh on model of piled raft and soil layers.

The piled raft was assumed to be a reinforced-concrete structure, and the

following properties were assigned: E = 24,822,000 kPa, = 0.3, = 22 kN/m3,
where E is modulus of deformation, is Poisson’s ratio, and is the unit weight.
With regard to the soil, the modulus of deformation for primary loading varies
linearly with depth based on the equation Es = 7.0 + 2.45Z, MPa. The average Es was
calculated for each of the three 20-m thick layers; thus, the modulus of deformation
for layer 1 is 31,500 kPa, layer 2 is 80,500 kPa, and layer 3 is 129,500 kPa. For all
layers, other properties of the soil are = 0.4, = 1.8kN/m3, c’ = 20kPa, and ’ = 20°,
where c’ = cohesion intercept and ’ = friction angle.

For consideration of the boundary conditions of soils at the far field, the nodes
of the four sides of the soil model were assumed fixed in the x and y directions; the
bottom was assumed fixed in the z direction. In order to compare results from the
model with the deformations reported by El-Mossallamy and Franke, five different
loads (200 MN, 400 MN, 600 MN, 650 MN, and 800 MN) were applied to the top of
the piled raft. These loads were converted to an applied pressure on the top of the
raft, using a surface area of 47m by 62m (2914m2). Figure 7 shows the comparison
of settlement from computation with the 3D model and from the field. The
agreement is excellent. The computer analysis shows the deflection across the
structure, as indicated in Fig. 8. The movement of the raft was sufficient to develop
fully the resistance of the piles with a considerable portion of the load on the piles
being transferred in end bearing, as shown by Fig. 9 where the finite-element
graphical output reveals a stress bulb in the zone of the base of the piles.

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Figure 7. Results from FEM analysis compared with BEM results from paper
(El-Mossallamy and Franke, 1997).

Figure 8. Settlement across the piled raft.

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 Figure 9 shows the vertical stress contours at the pile in the raft. Both the
linear and non-linear analyses show the same levels and locations of stress intensity,
with the highest concentrations located along the exterior piles. The stress “bulbs”
produced in the soil layers around the piles is evident. For the analysis of
Westendstrasse 1, linear finite-elements were employed because for much of the soil
the stress-strain curve was judged to be in the linear range under the design load.
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Three-dimensional, non-linear finite elements can be run with the PC, but runs for
nonlinear problems with over 300,000 elements will require several days. The use of
the PC for such problems will become more practical as the PC continues to gain in
computational power.

Figure 9. Vertical stress contour plot for raft, piles, and soil.
.

Case Study in Urawa City, Japan

Yamashita and Yamada (1998) have reported a performance of a piled-raft

foundation in stiff clay. The building is a five-story reinforced-concrete structure.

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 The subsurface soils consist of a surface layer of over-consolidated stiff clay with a
thickness of 6m, which is underlain by loose to medium sand and a thin layer of stiff
clay at 15 m below the ground surface. A medium to dense sand layer was
encountered at depths of 16m to 19m, which is underlain by stiff to hard clay with
varying thickness.

The pile length was approximately 15.8 m and the tips of the piles are seated
in the medium to dense sand layer. The piles were constructed by inserting a H-shape
of steel member into a pre-drilled borehole filled with mixed-in-place soil cement.
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The predicted ultimate bearing capacity of the composite pile is 2.85 MN for a
diameter of 0.8m and 2.52 MN for a diameter of 0.7m. The reinforced-concrete raft
was 28 m x 27 m in plan and 2.4 m thick. A total of 20 piles were placed at each
column position, 10 of which were 0.7 m in diameter and the other 10 were 0.8 m in
diameter. The layout of the piles is shown in Fig. 10.

Figure 10. Foundation plan for piles at Urawa City site.

The piled raft was modeled as reinforced concrete. A 3D tetra element mesh
was generated on the model, with 0.5-m wide elements between the piles and
gradually increasing to 10-m wide elements at the boundaries. The final building
load on the foundation is reported as 47.5 MN, which was applied as a 62.8 KPa
distributed load.

The computer program AMPS (2004), as used in the Frankfurt analysis, was
used to construct the models and analyze the behavior of the system. Figure 11
shows the mesh layout and the contour plot of vertical displacement. Fig. 12 shows a
cross-section of the model displaying both the displacement and its associated
contour plot. The maximum vertical displacement of 1.8 cm was measured at the

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 center of the raft. The computed maximum vertical displacement by FEM is 1.54 cm
near the center, which is very close to the measured value.
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Figure 11. Vertical displacement of piled raft foundation.

Figure 12. Cross-section view of displacement shown with vertical displacement

contour plot.

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 Conclusions

Application of an available 3D finite-element method in the analysis of a

composite foundation has shown the method to be feasible and to have many
advantages over simplified methods. Many such tools are currently available and
foundation engineers are encouraged to use those tools for advancing the capability to
design complicated foundation systems such as piled rafts. The theory should be
understood and appropriate checks must be devised, preferably employing hand
computations where possible, to assure correct results.
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The 3D FEM will model the structural element of the mat and piles in a piled
raft, will simulate the interface between the structural components and the foundation
soil, and will employ linear or nonlinear soil properties to achieve a satisfactory
solution. The use of the PC for 3D linear analyses is fully satisfactory and will be
able to accomplish the nonlinear analyses as the PC continues to gain in
computational power.

References

Advanced Multi-Physics Simulation (AMPS), 3Dimensional General-purpose

Finite Element Software, AMPS Technologies Company, Pittsburgh, PA 2004.
El-Mossallamy, Y. and Franke, E., “Pile Rafts-Numerical Modeling to
Simulate the Behavior of Pile Raft Foundations,” 1997, Published by the authors,
Darmstadt, Germany.
Franke, E., “Measurements beneath Piled Rafts,” Colloque International,
Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chausses, Paris, March 19-21, 1991 (Keynote lecture).
Franke, E., Lutz, B., and EL-Mossallamy, Y. “Measurements and Numerical
Modelling of High-Rise Building Foundations on Frankfurt Clay,” Geot. Spec. Publ.
No. 40 (eds A. Yeung and G. Felio), ASCE, New York, 1994, 2, 1325-1336
Poulos, H. G., “Methods of Analysis of Piled Raft Foundations,” A report
prepared on behalf of Technical Committee TC18 in Piled Foundations, International
Society of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering, July 1981.
Sommer, H., Wittmann, P., and Ripper, P. “Piled Raft Foundation of a Tall
Building in Frankfurt Clay,” Proceedings, 11th ICSMFE, San Francisco, 1985, Vol. 4.
Yamshita, K. and Yamada, T., “Simplified method for analyzing piled raft
foundations,” Deep Foundations on Bored and Auger Piles, ed. VanImpe &
Haegeman, Balkema, Rotterdam, 1998.

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