INVESTIGATION OF ROLE OF PILE CAPS IN LATERAL LOAD CARRYING CAPACITY OF PILES

Abstract

There are many structures which require special kind of foundation systems. There are many a situations where the foundations are subjected to large magnitudes of horizontal loads and moments. The structures may also be constructed in weaker soil strata. Under these conditions, pile foundations become the necessity. Pile foundations consist of a number of piles in a group structurally coupled together by pile caps. These pile caps contribute significantly in resisting lateral loads. Conventional methods of analysis neglect the cap contribution which introduces large inaccuracies in deflections and bending moments. More economical pile foundations may be designed and their behaviour may be more accurately predicted, if the cap resistance may be accurately assessed. In this dissertation, an attempt has been made to study the behaviour of pile — pile cap system under imposed lateral loads with reference to different parameters. Three dimensional finite element analyses has been used to investigate the effect of thickness of pile cap, width of pile cap, length of pile and allowable displacement of pile cap on load carrying capacity of the system. The analyses have been performed using ANSYS 7.0