Behaviour of Cushioned Composite Piled Raft Foundation under Lateral Forces

In order to mobilize shallow soil to participate in the interaction of piled raft foundation sufficiently, the concept of piled raft has been modified to new type of foundation named composite piled raft. In the system of composite piled raft, the short piles made of flexible materials were used to strengthen the shallow soft soil, while the long piles made of relatively rigid materials were used to reduce the settlements and the cushion beneath the raft was used to redistribute and adjust the stress ratio of piles to subsoil. Finite element method was applied to study the behaviour of this new type of foundation subjected to seismic forces. This paper focuses on behaviour of various components of foundation system such as long pile and short piles under lateral seismic force i.e. Sanfer 1971 earthquake in geological conditions related to Surat city. A comparative study is done to understand the effect of cushion on axial stresses, shear stresses and shear forces along piles. © 2014, Indian Geotechnical Society.