Load settlement characteristics of piled rafts in sand

Abstract

This study investigates the effects of pile numbers, pile length, pile spacing and pile diameters on the load-settlement response of a piled raft in dense sand through model tests. A total of 17 tests were conducted to study how varying the parameters would affect the load-settlement response of piled rafts in which the piles act as settlement reducers. The effects of pile numbers and pile length on the load-settlement response of a piled raft will be covered in detail this paper.Preparation of the sand bed in which the tests were conducted in was an important part of the

tests as the sand beds produced needed to be reproducible. Air pluviation technique was

selected to prepare the sand bed for the tests as it was the most efficient method which gave

consistent results. The sand was loaded into a hopper before being pluviated from a fall height

of 1 m. The sand beds produced were relatively dense and reproducible across the tests.