Piled Raft – A Cost-Effective Foundation Method for High-Rises

Abstract

During the last decades, the quick growth of cities all over the world has led to a rapid increase in the number and height of high-rise and super high-rise buildings. High-rises often rest on pile foundations, which are designed using the conventional method, where the piles take the full load from the superstructure. Recently it is increasingly recognised that the use of piles to reduce the foundation settlement and differential settlement can lead to considerable savings. Only a limited number of piles, called settlement-reducers, may improve the ultimate load capacity, the settlement performance, as well as the required thickness of the raft. In this article the result from the Author’s experiment study, which strongly supports the concept of settlement-reducers in non-cohesive soil, are reviewed. Applications of FEM in design of piled-raft foundations for high-rises are also discussed.