Improving the Performance of Piled Raft Foundations Using Deformation Adjustors: A Case Study

Complicated soil conditions are direct difficulties for high-rise building projects. A new device called a deformation adjustor, which is used to optimize the stiffness distribution in the piled raft system, has achieved good results for this challenge. This paper presents a case study on the application of deformation adjustors to improve the performance of a piled raft foundation. This case study describes the preliminary design of pile-raft foundations with deformation adjustors, followed by numerical analysis. Based on the numerical study, the potential savings are demonstrated due to the good performance of soil bearing capacity. Comparing the numerical results with the monitoring results in raft settlements, earth pressures, deformation amount of deformation adjustors, pile top reactions, and load-sharing ratios between soils and piles, the accuracy of the design schemes with an aided numerical analysis is verified. Through a long-term monitoring, soils below the raft carried 63% of the total applied loads, while the piles bear 37% of the loads. This case study proved that a piled raft foundation with deformation adjustors was an effective and economical design scheme, which can make full use of the soil bearing capacity. It is of great significance to facilitate the design and construction of piled raft foundations in complicated soil conditions.

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