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Comparisons of some programs for analysing piled raft problems

Conference Paper · November 2000

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 COMPARISONS OF SOME PROGRAMS FOR ANALYSING PILED RAFT
PROBLEMS

Maurício M. Sales
School of Civil Engineering, Federal University of Goias, Brazil

Renato P. Cunha & Márcio M. Farias

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Brasilia, Brazil

John C. Small & Harry G. Poulos

Department of Civil Engineering, University of Sydney, Australia

ABSTRACT

This paper presents the comparisons of some numerical methods used in the analysis of
piled raft foundations. Three classical examples, previously published by Butterfield &
Banerjee (1971), Ottaviani (1975) and Kuwabara (1989) are re-analysed by three distinct
programs based on different numerical concepts. The objective of the comparisons is to
determine if the different methods give similar numerical results.
In the analysed cases, the agreement of the results is reasonably good when the
programs are based on the same numerical approach. However, the difference between the
results increases when they are obtained from numerical programs based on different
numerical approaches.
The paper concludes with general comments and warnings concerning the analysis of
piled raft problems with differing numerical methods.

KEYWORDS: Piled rafts, numerical analysis, foundations, settlement.

INTRODUCTION

Combined foundations incorporating piles and a raft, or a footing, are increasingly

being studied as a new alternative for foundation systems. The settlement-based foundation
design can often lead to considerable economy, without compromising the safety and
performance of the whole foundation system. The analysis of such types of foundations,
usually called piled rafts, or piled footings, is not straightforward due to the complex three-
dimensional nature of the problem.
The last decade was strongly marked by the development of many programs oriented
towards the analysis of piled rafts. For instance, Poulos et al. (1997) studied a theoretical nine
piled raft problem with different programs, and pointed out that in general, the level of
agreement of the adopted numerical programs could be fairly good.
In this paper, three classical examples of piled rafts were chosen for analysis by
programs that are based on differing numerical methods. The re-analysed examples are those
published by Butterfield & Banerjee (1971), Ottaviani (1975) and Kuwabara (1989). Ottaviani
(1975) carried out his analysis using a program based on a three-dimensional Finite Element
Method (F.E.M.), while in the other two analyses, the programs were based on the Boundary
Element Method (B.E.M.).
 In this paper the following three numerical programs were used:
(i) ALLFINE: A Finite Element Program developed by Farias (1993). In this case,
8-nodes-brick elements were used in the 3-D analyses of the piled raft
examples;
(ii) GARP6: This is a program based on a hybrid formulation, developed by Poulos
(1994), and recently upgraded by Small & Poulos (1998). The raft is divided
into elastic thin plate finite elements, the soil is modelled as an elastic layered
continuum and the piles are represented by elastic-plastic spring elements,
taking into account the various raft-soil-pile interactions via approximate
elastic solutions. In this program, the single pile response can be estimated by
simplified equations (Randolph, 1978), or via other numerical programs. In the
present analyses, the single pile response was obtained by the program
DEFPIG (Deformation Analysis of Pile Groups, Poulos 1980). DEFPIG is a
program based on the Boundary Element Method employing Mindlin's
equations for an isotropic, homogeneous, linear elastic medium;
(iii) PIRAF: Developed by Ta & Small (1996), this program can be classified as a
hybrid program, in which the raft is divided into thin plate finite elements and
the soil and piles are analysed by the Finite Layer technique.
All the analyses were carried out employing a linear-elastic soil response, as was done
in the original analyses.

BUTTERFIELD & BANERJEE (1971) ANALYSES

Butterfield and Banerjee analysed the response of several piled raft problems where the
raft was considered rigid. The program used by these authors was based on the Boundary
Element Method (B.E.M.) to represent all elements involved in the foundation. Two cases
were selected to be re-analysed, a single pile example and a nine piled raft, both adopting
=6000 (=Ep/G, where Ep is the elastic concrete pile modulus and G is the soil shear
modulus). The other variables adopted in the present analysis were:

Pile - Ep = 18 GPa (Young’s modulus) Soil - G = 3 MPa (shear modulus)

p = 0,17 (Poisson’s ratio - pile) s = 0,5 (Poisson’s ratio - soil)
D = 0,2 m (pile diameter) Es = 9 MPa (Young’s modulus)

Figure 1 presents the load-settlement behaviour predicted by the three programs, as well
as the published values of Butterfield & Banerjee (1971) related to a single pile. In this figure,
the vertical axis represents the dimensionless pile response ratio, P/GwD, where P is the
applied load; G, the shear modulus; w, the pile settlement and D is the pile diameter.
It can be noted that all predictions are in excellent agreement. It also seems that, in the
programs where a lower boundary (H/L) had to be assumed, a soil layer of thickness five
times the pile length is enough to approximate the infinitely deep layer analysed by
Butterfield and Banerjee, as mentioned in Sales et al. (1998).
The nine-piled raft analysis is presented in Figure 2, using the parameters mentioned
above. The raft has an overhang of 0.75D, and the results were obtained by varying the pile
spacing for a pile length to diameter ratio of 40 (L/D). Figure 2a shows the load-settlement
behaviour, while Figure 2b presents the percentage of load carried by the raft.

Some aspects of this particular comparison can be pointed out:

 a) The agreement, in terms of settlement, between the GARP6 results and the
Butterfield & Banerjee (1971) values was very good for all pile spacings (S/D).
Major differences, however, can be noted for the predicted proportion of load
supported by the raft;
b) The ALLFINE program predicted lower settlements for both pile spacings analysed.
This program employed a mesh with 2940 elements and 3600 nodes, and a lower
boundary at H/L=5;
c) The PIRAF settlement values were closer to the original ones than the other
predictions. On the other hand, results for the load sharing were quite variable for
the programs tested herein.

L/D
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
0
B&B
ALLFINE (H/L = 5)
20 DEFPIG (H/L= oo)
DEFPIG (H/L= 5)
PIRAF (H/L = 5)
40

60
P/GwD

80

Figure 1 - Single pile load-settlement behaviour. Program predictions vs. Butterfield &
Banerjee’s (1971) results.

S/D
0 2,5 5 7,5 10 12,5 15
% raft load

0 80
B&B L/D = 40
L/D = 40 Ep/Gs = 6000
ALLFINE

100 60 GARP6
PIRAF

200 40

B&B
P/(GWD)

300 ALLFINE 20
GARP6
(b)
PIRAF
(a)
0
400
0 5 10 S/D 15

Figure 2 - Nine piled raft load-settlement behaviour. Program predictions vs. Butterfield &
Banerjee’s (1971) results.

In summary, the results from the GARP and PIRAF programs gave a better agreement
with the original settlement values of Butterfield & Banerjee (1971) than the program
ALLFINE, but all programs underpredicted the load supported by the raft. All programs
showed an increase in the percentage of raft supported load with the pile spacing increase, but
the values showed a considerable scatter.

OTTAVIANI (1975) ANALYSES

Ottaviani (1975) presented a 3-D analysis of several piled rafts and also for single pile
problems. This author employed a F.E.M. program with 8-noded prismatic elements.
Figure 3 compares the original Ottaviani results with predictions obtained by the
authors. In this case a 20m single pile was analysed, considering a rigid lower boundary at
H/L=4. In this figure, the solution of Mattes & Poulos (1968), which is based on B.E.M.
analysis, is also presented. The dimensionless settlement ratio (EpwD/P) is plotted against the
pile stiffness factor K=Ep/Es , where Ep is the Young’s modulus of the pile.
A fairly good agreement between all solutions was obtained. Nevertheless, the programs
based on the B.E.M. have a tendency to overpredict the settlement.
Ep.w.D/P1

200
Ottaviani
Mattes & Poulos
150 ALLFINE
GARP6
PIRAF
100

50 L=20m
H/L=4

0
0 500 1000 1500 2000
K

Figure 3 - Single pile load-settlement behaviour. Comparison with Ottaviani’s (1975) results.

Figure 4 compares the vertical stress distribution in different sections of a single pile.
vp represents the stress on a specific section in relation to the pile head stress. The studied
pile was 40m long, with a relative stiffness of K=2000. The program GARP could not provide
this type of numerical prediction since it replaces the pile with an equivalent spring element.
The ALLFINE predictions were in excellent agreement with the original values, while the
PIRAF stress values tended to be a little bit higher than the original results.
The predictions of the response of a nine-piled raft are presented in Figure 5. In this
case, a 20m long pile was used with varying relative stiffnesses (K). Similar meshes were
employed in all analyses. In the Ottaviani (1975) reference analyses, a mesh with 3300 nodes
and 2700 "8-node brick" elements was adopted to simulate the foundation. In the ALLFINE
analyses, a similar mesh with 2535 nodes and 2016 elements (of the same kind) was used.
  vp
0 0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8 1 1,2
0
5 L = 40m
K = 2000
10 H/L = 1.5
15
20
25
Ottaviani
30
ALLFINE
H (m)

35
40 PIRAF

45

Figure 4 - Vertical stress distribution in a single pile. Comparison with Ottaviani’s (1975)
results.

400
Ep.w.D/P

L = 20m
Ottaviani

300 ALLFINE
GARP6
PIRAF
200

100

0
0 500 1000 1500 2000
K

Figure 5 - Nine piled raft load-settlement behaviour. Comparison with Ottaviani’s

(1975) results.

In Figure 5 it is noticed that both the Ottaviani (1975) and ALLFINE predictions are
very close. GARP6 predicted settlements which were around 30% greater than the original
reference values. The PIRAF values were closer to the GARP6 solutions than to the Ottaviani
results. As observed before, programs based on the same numerical approach give similar
results.

KUWABARA’S (1989) PROBLEM

This author carried out an elastic analysis for piled raft foundation systems employing a
B.E.M. program. Only vertical load was considered, and the rigid raft was located on the
surface of a homogeneous, isotropic, elastic half-space.
 Figure 6 compares the results for a single pile with relative stiffness of K=1000. The
soil Poisson’s coefficient was chosen to be close to 0.5, and the analyses considered pile
lengths varying from 25D to 200D. The obtained settlements were similar for all programs, as
expressed by the dimensionless ratio P/EswD. As expected, there is a "critical" value of L/D
after which the increase on pile length does not reduce the settlement further. A tendency for
all of the dimensionless curves to level out at the same L/D value was observed. However,
Kuwabara’s (1989) results show higher values of L/D, above which the settlements do not
increase further.

25
P/Es.w.D

20

15

Kuwabara
10 ALLFINE
GARP6

5 PIRAF

0
0 40 80 120 160 L/D 200

Figure 6 - Single pile load-settlement behaviour. Comparisons with Kuwabara’s (1989)

results.

Figures 7a, 7b and 7c present the load-settlement response of the nine-piled raft
simulations of Kuwabara (1989), in which the pile spacing and length were continuously
varied. A raft overhang of D was also assumed for the analyses.
Figure 7 demonstrates that:
a) ALLFINE (F.E.M.) yielded lower settlement values than those of the other
programs. The same settlement tendency, however, is noticed for this program in
relation to the others. The ALLFINE analysis employed a mesh with 2940 elements
and 3600 nodes, with a rigid lower boundary at H/L=5;
b) The GARP6 and PIRAF results were in good agreement with the reference
Kuwabara (1989) values, specially in the L/D range of 25 to 100. Beyond a length
of 100 diameters however, there is a tendency for both the GARP6 and PIRAF
settlement predictions to reach a constant maximum value. This tendency was not
observed in Kuwabara’s (1989) study.

Figure 8 shows the proportion of load supported by the raft, in the case of Kuwabara’s
example. PIRAF yielded results with a very good level of agreement with the original values.
For short piles (L/D = 20-30), the ALLFINE results were closer to the reference Kuwabara
(1989) values, while in the case of long piles (L/D>80), the GARP6 predictions were better.
A comparison of the individual pile loads for this same example is presented in Figure
9. In this case, however, piles of L/D=25 with varying spacings were considered. In general,
the agreement between the numerical predictions can be considered fairly good. It is also
noticed that ALLFINE tended to predict the most uniform load share values.
Other classical piled raft numerical comparisons could not be presented herein due to
space limitations, but they can be found in Sales (2000)

80
P/Es.w.D

(a) S/D = 3

60

40
Kuwabara
20 ALLFINE
GARP6
PIRAF
0
0 50 100 150 200 250
L/D

80
P/Es.w.D

(b) S/D = 5

60

Kuwabara
40
ALLFINE
GARP6
PIRAF
20
0 50 100 150 200 250
L/D

100
P/Es.w.D

(c) S/D = 10

80

60
Kuwabara
ALLFINE
40
GARP6
PIRAF
20
0 50 100 150 200 L/D 250

Figure 7 - Nine piled raft load-settlement behaviour, for various pile lengths and spacings.
Comparison with Kuwabara’s (1989) results. (a) S/D=3, (b) S/D=5 and (c) S/D=10.
 50

load on the raft (%)

Kuwabara
ALLFINE
40 GARP6
PIRAF

30

20

10

0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
L/D

Figure 8 - Percentage of load supported by the raft of a nine-piled raft. Comparison with
Kuwabara’s (1989) results.
load on each pile (%)

20
corner edge centre
Kuwabara
ALLFINE
15
GARP6
PIRAF
10

0
0 5 10 15
S/D

Figure 9 - Percentage of load on each pile of a nine piled raft. Comparison with Kuwabara’s
(1989) results.

CONCLUSIONS

Examples of piled rafts previously analysed in three classical papers, Butterfield &
Banerjee (1971), Ottaviani (1975) and Kuwabara (1989), are reanalysed herein with programs
based on differing numerical approaches. From the analyses presented in this paper, the
following conclusions can be drawn:
 The agreement between the results of the various programs was better for settlements
rather than for load sharing between the piles and the raft;
  Programs with a similar theoretical basis, such as ALLFINE and the F.E. program of
Ottaviani (1975) yielded similar predictions of performance;
 The settlement predictions of F.E.M. based programs were systematically lower than
the predictions with B.E.M. based programs, for the piled raft cases. In the case of
single piles, however, all the results were similar in magnitude;
 Ideally both B.E.M and F.E.M. analyses should produce the same result, but since
not all original data were available, it is difficult to determine the exact reason for the
differences observed. These differences could be due to the boundary position, kind of
finite elements, size of the mesh, and so on. While the reasons for such discrepancies
are not clear at this stage, it is clear that one must be careful when comparing numerical
predictions of programs with distinctly different theoretical backgrounds. The
accumulated numerical experience for single piles or pile groups is not large enough to
draw firm conclusions about the most reliable procedures for piled raft analyses.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This research was possible due to a joint technical co-operation program between the
University of Sydney, Australia and the University of Brasilia, Brazil. The first author would
like to express his gratitude to CAPES, his sponsor during his entire doctorate program, and
during the year spent at the University of Sydney. The second author thanks the Brazilian
Research Council (CNPq) for the financial support provided during his post doctoral period at
the University of Brasilia.

REFERENCES

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FARIAS, M.M. (1993). Numerical Analysis of Clay Core Dams. PhD Thesis, University
College of Swansea, Swansea, UK, 159p.
KUWABARA, F. (1989). An elastic analysis for piled raft foundations in a homogeneous
soil. Soils and Foundations, Vol. 29(1): 82-92.
MATTES, N.S. & POULOS, H.G. (1968). Settlement of single compressible pile. Journal of
Geot. Eng. Div., ASCE, 95(SM1) : 189-207.
OTTAVIANI, M. (1975). Three-dimensional finite element analysis of vertically loaded pile
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