SETTLEMENT ANALYSIS OF PILE FOUNDATIONS IN MULTI-LAYERED ELASTIC MEDIUM

Abstract

Piles are one of the most important types of foundation in use today. Design of a pile foundation not very commonly includes a settlement analysis and it is usually limited to determining a factor of safety on pile capacity. This approach is uneconomical and sometimes unsafe too. Therefore, a comprehensive settlement analysis needs to be performed for the design of pile foundations. A number of methods have been developed for estimating the behaviour of pile groups, ranging from simple closed form solutions to sophisticated non-linear finite element analysis. The mechanism of load transfer in pile groups involves a complex system interaction of piles, pile cap, and surrounding soil. The process is affected by many factors such as soil properties, single pile and pile group geometry, single pile-soil interaction, and interaction between the different elements in the group. Then, due to the uncertainty or difficulty in quantifying these factors, there are no methods capable to accurate...