Proceedings of Indian Geotechnical Conference

December 15-17, 2011, Kochi (Paper No. N 181.)

PILED-RAFT FOUNDATION ON CONSOLIDATING SOFT SOIL

Soumya Roy, Assistant Professor, Meghnad Saha Institute of Technology, Kolkata, email: roy.shoummo@gmail.com
Bikash Chandra Chattopadhyay, Ex. Head & Ex. Professor, BESUS, Howrah, email: ccbikash@yahoo.com
Ramendu Bikash Sahu, Professor, JU, Kolkata, West Bengal, email: rbsahu_1963@yahoo.co.in

ABSTRACT: In traditional design of piled foundations with large caps, the superstructure loads are assumed to be carried
by piles only and contact between the pile cap and ground surface is purposefully avoided. On the other hand, a raft if used,
may provide high load carrying capacity without the possibilities of shear failure of the supporting soil but the resulting
settlement will be beyond the permissible limit. Allowable pressure on supporting soil is governed by loads corresponding
to the tolerable settlements. As a result, on soft soils, for heavily loaded structures, piles are generally adopted foundations,
however at a high cost. In such cases, increasing application of piled raft foundations are being made for economic reasons.
In this paper, based on nature of the subsoil profile and field tests on pile, a simplified design approach considering the load
sharing mechanism of piles and raft is proposed. Due considerations are given to the site conditions, raft-soil, pile-soil and
piled raft interaction.

INTRODUCTION
For piled raft foundation, a more rational and economical
solution could be obtained by accounting the contribution
of the raft towards the overall load sharing. The design of
piled raft is based on the soil-structure interaction between
the constituting elements and this is achieved through
different methods proposed by Poulos et al. [19];
Katzenbach et al. [15], Randolph [21]; Franke [8].
However, the piled raft subsoil interaction problem is
highly complicated as it depends on large number of
parameters like pile-raft geometry, pile spacing, subsoil
characteristics etc. Furthermore, till date very rare
settlement oriented proposals, as pointed by Balakumar and
Ilamparuthi [3], are observed regarding design of piled raft
foundations in consolidation prone soft subsoil deposits.
The effect of ongoing consolidation settlement is difficult
to consider in design of such piled raft foundations on soft
soil deposits.
In this paper, an attempt has been made to formulate a
simpler design method for calculation of load carrying
capacity of piled raft system in a very soft consolidating
underlying soil stratum. Pile elements are used to control or
restrict the average settlement to a permitted value. As well,
the raft is also allowed to share a portion of load so that the
piles do not have to carry the entire superstructure load.
Proposed method is analyzed by utilizing the field
performance of pile from routine pile load test conducted at
the construction site in Eastern part of Kolkata city in a
very unique soft clay deposit extending from 2 to 14 m
(more or less) below the ground level.
LITERATURE SURVEY
Analytical Studies on Piled Rafts
In the analytical field, the pioneering work was started by
Butterfield and Banerjee [4]. And thereafter important
developed models are Strip-Spring model by Poulos [18],
879

Plate-Spring model of Clancy and Randolph [5], Boundary

element method by Sinha [23], FEM application in raft and
Boundary element for pile by Hain and Lee [10], Franke et
al. [9], FEM analysis involving plain strain and
axisymmetric problem by Hooper [11]; Prokoso and
Kulhawy [20], 3D FEA by Zhang et al. [28]. All these
methods do have specific objectives in studying the overall
and differential settlements, raft bending and parametric
effects. A critical study of the work of Poulos [19] showed
that results from such models show large scatter from each
other.
Experimental Studies
Model Pile Rafts
Experimental work on model piles is reported by Whitaker
[27]. The model studies by Weisner & Brown [26], Cooke
[6], Kim et al. [17], Turek and Katzenbach [25], Balakumar
and Ilamparuthi [1], Balakumar et al. [2], Thaher and
Jessberger [24], and Horikoshi and Randolph [12] indicated
that adopting linear elastic theory produces satisfactory
results, also when piles are added as settlement reducer, but
increasing the number of piles do not produce any
additional advantage. Cooke [6] and Horikoshi and
Randolph [13] showed that the addition of small group of
piles in the center can reduce the differential settlement
considerably. It has also been opined that Balakumar and
Ilamparuthi [3] behavioral trend of prototype piled raft
should also be monitored along with the small scale
models.
Prototype Models
Monitoring of instrumented prototype piled raft has been
reported by Hooper [11] for a high structure named Cavalry
Barracks in London. Katzenbach et al. [15] have published
some valuable performances of working piled rafts on
Frankfurt Clay. In addition, the results of observation made
on piled raft of Eurotheum tower has been used for

Soumya Roy, Bikash Chandra Chattopadhyay & Ramendu Bikash Sahu

designing Max Tower by Katzenbach et al. [16]. This
implies that adequate data based on the observation must be
available along with analytical validation so that results can
be used as base for design.
The literature survey on piled raft foundation design
discussed above under three headings shows that, hardly
any approach has been made to formulate a relatively
simple and accurate method for designing a piled raft
foundation in consolidating foundation bed. Settlement
oriented design methodologies are also limited.
PROPOSED DESIGN METHODOLOGY
For the present work, to understand the raft soil, raft pile
and pile soil interaction of composite pile raft foundations
some practical assumptions have been made for the stress
strain behavior of the pile, the subsoil, the raft and the
superstructure. The raft and superstructure are assumed as
rigid structures. The interaction of the pile and soil response
is restricted in linearly elastic region. Such assumptions
have resulted in satisfactory outcome in the piled raft
performance based on numerical models of Roy and
Chattopadhyay [22], Mossallamy et al. [7], Jeong et
al. [14].
Capacity of piled raft foundation
For a raft, proposed design approach starts with
determination of its bearing capacity from both the shear
failure criterion and permissible settlement limits for
existing subsoil profile. The safe load for the raft is
finalized following the most critical condition of the above
two criteria. Now from the routine pile load tests the load
that could be safely taken by the pile is evaluated through
load settlement curves. Thus for a chosen settlement of ',
if raft carries a load, 'R and pile carries a load, 'P, then the
capacity of piled raft foundation, 'PR can be expressed as
'PR = 'R + 'P

raft is calculated considering both consolidation settlement

and immediate settlement of the existing subsoil profile. At
a consolidation settlement of 'c, let the load taken by the
raft be 'Rc. At that load of 'Rc, corresponding immediate
settlement, 'I is calculated. The 'Rc can be derived from
the consolidation equation:

p o  'Rc
Cc
H log 10
1  eo
po

'c

(2)

From the above equation, 'Rc can be written as

'c

'Rc

[10 CeH ] po  p o

(3)

where
p o is the initial overburden pressure,
Ce

Cc
1  eo

(4)

H = depth of the compressible strata,

C c = compression index and

eo = initial void ratio of the consolidating layer.

Finally, ' is to be re checked as

'c  'I # '

(5)

So that the total settlement of the raft and pile becomes

almost identical and hence 'R can be written as

'R

'Rc

(6)

(1)

Here settlement ' takes care of both immediate and

consolidation settlement of the subsoil profile. Refer Fig. 1
for diagrammatic illustration.
Calculation of 'P
The value of settlement ' of the combined pile-raft
system, can be taken and adopted as per project
requirement or subsoil condition and corresponding load on
pile i.e., 'P can be obtained directly from the load
settlement curves of the conducted routine load test on pile.
The value of ' can be varied to obtain required load
sharing mechanism between the piles and the raft within
linear zone of the load settlement curve of the pile.
Calculation of 'R
As mentioned previously, ' in the proposed approach is
the total settlement i.e., sum of both initial and
consolidation settlement for the raft. The value of 'R for

(a)

(b)

Fig. 1 Schematic diagram (a) Load settlement curve of

routine pile load test; (b) Load taken by raft and pile at
chosen settlement, ', from pile load test curve
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
To elucidate the described principle of design of pile raft
foundation on consolidating soft soil, an example problem
of 10 m u 10 m square raft with a central pile of 30 m long
in a typical Kolkata soft soil deposit is considered.
In the primary design stage, a large raft size was avoided
keeping in view the soft subsoil condition and better
understanding convenience. The subsoil profile condition of
880

Piled Raft Foundation on Consolidating Soft Soil

the site is given in Table 1. Figure 2 depicts the results of
pile load test.

Ce

N value

N.M.C.(%)
C in
kN/m

Depth in m.

Site condition
A site in the eastern part of the Kolkata city, where a
commercial cum residential buildings are proposed, is
selected for critically analyzing the present design
technique. Kolkata falls under typical deltaic region. The
existing subsoil properties and other details are indicated in
Table 1.
Table 1 Summary of Existing Soil Properties
Soil Type
Soil Data
Shear
parameters
in
kN/
m3
Filled up soil 0-2 15 Greyish soft
2-8 78 20 1 16.5
4
0.12
clay
Deep brown
clay with
855 21 0
7.5
4
0.11
decomposed
14
vegetation
Bluish
1410medium silty
67 48 9
7.5
0.08
22
12
clay
Medium
22
dense silty
18 to
32 52 28 7.5
sand
with
20
28
mica
Yellowish
28 35 3 65 7.5
38
dense sand
33
The G.W.T. was found to be at 2.0 m below the E.G.L. at

the time of subsoil exploration.

Fig. 2 Load-settlement curve of routine load test on pile
Pile length 32 m with cut off at 2.0 m from E.G.L.
Allowable load on Raft
Ultimate bearing capacity of the chosen raft was first
calculated from the existing soil profile for the shear failure
case. The corresponding safe bearing capacity was found to
be 74.5 kN/m2. The value is quite satisfactory for the
proposed site condition. But the total settlement at this
capacity was found to be 225 mm which is beyond the
permissible settlement for raft. Considering the allowable
settlement of 100 mm the allowable capacity for the chosen
881

raft reduces to a value of 30 kN/m2. Hence though the raft

would be able to withstand shear at a high load but it will
suffer excessive settlement.
Calculation of 'PR
Considering the simplest case of a raft supported on a
single pile, 'PR calculation as per the proposed method can
be described as follows. Capacity of tested pile from Fig. 2
is 650 kN (65 t) corresponding to a settlement of 3.5 mm.
At a small settlement of 3.5 mm pile can take a large load
compared to the safe load on raft. Utilizing the stiffness of
pile, at the 1st iteration, total allowable settlement ' for
the piled raft be taken as only 4 mm. At this adopted '
value, from Fig. 2, load on pile is 730 kN (73 t). Following
Eqs. (3) to (6), 'R for the assumed ' was found to be 98.2
kN (9.82 t). Thus, substituting the values of 'R and 'P in
Eq. (1), 'PR = 828.2 kN (82.82 t). The results for different
' are summarised in Table 2.
Table 2 Values of 'PR at different '
'P in ton
'R in ton
Settlement, ' in
mm
4
73
9.82
6
98
15
10
130
24.7

'PR in ton
82.82
113
154.7

The piled raft capacity for different settlements in the

chosen site with the load shared by the raft and pile is given
in Table 2. The forth column gives the capacity of the
adopted piled raft foundation. At a settlement of only 6 mm
raft takes a load of 1.5 t/m2. For the chosen raft, without
pile, this load was mobilized at a settlement of 50 mm
which is much greater than the adopted settlement of 6 mm
for the piled raft system. Additionally, from 3rd iteration,
i.e., when a settlement of 10 mm is allowed for the pile raft
foundation its capacity is more than 150 t. This shows that
if only piles were provided such load was not allowable
following the routine pile load test plot in Fig. 2.
CONCLUSIONS
The following conclusions can be drawn from the proposed
simplified approach for the piled raft foundation on soft
consolidating subsoil condition.
x In order to economize the design of a piled raft system,
raft must be allowed to share some part of the
superstructure load.
x To minimize the differential settlement in piled raft
foundation due consideration must be given to both
initial as well as consolidation settlement of the raft.
x The present method includes the subsoil interaction
with pile, raft and composite piled raft foundation
system.
x

In this proposed method the pile dimensions, raft

dimensions, different suitable methods of pile group
arrangement could be incorporated in tentative designs
to make a most cost effective and efficient foundation
system for a prototype foundation system.

Soumya Roy, Bikash Chandra Chattopadhyay & Ramendu Bikash Sahu

14. Jeong, Gyo-Sung and Choi sik-Kyung, (2003). Design Charts
x

The proposed method can help the designer in the first

design stage to check the rationality of a piled raft
foundation and to investigate both the serviceability
requirements as well as the ultimate limit states of the
foundation required for a specific project and site
condition.

15.

16.
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