Telescopic non-connected piled-raft foundation (TNCPRF)

For the optimum design of Piled Raft Foundations (PRF), the concept of settlement reducer piles has been applied. However, when these piles are connected to the raft, a high stress may develop in the relatively small number of piles. Therefore, an alternative approach is to disconnect the piles from the raft forming a new system called a non-connected or disconnected piled-raft foundation (NCPRF or DCPRF). The use of these piles may be limited if they are designed for structural which are imposed to horizontal loads. This paper presents an innovative technique named Telescopic Non-Connected Piled-Raft Foundation (TNCPRF) to enhance the capacity of non-connected piled-raft foundation under horizontal loads. A parametric study using finite elements code, PLAXIS 3D, was conducted to compare the efficiency of proposed model with NCPRF and PRF. The numerical results reveal that the settlement of the proposed TNCPRF under axial load was reduced. The horizontal displacement of TNCPRF under lateral was also reduced compared with NCPRF. However, stress reduction was not observed using proposed model compared to NCPRF. In general, numerical results confirm that the proposed TNCPRF can be considered for further investigation to be used as a substructure system which imposed to lateral loads.