Abstract
The piled-raft foundation, a new design concept, is one of the most effective kinds of foundation for reducing settlement of structures. An alternative piled-raft system with disconnection cap and a sand cushion between the pile and raft was also investigated to compare the influence of ultimate bearing capacity and settlement. Load-settlement relation curves were used to evaluate the ultimate bearing capacity. In the numerical analyses, a plane strain elasto-plastic finite element model (Mohr-Coulomb model) was used to present the response of the piled-raft foundation.