Physical modelling of piled raft

The paper presents the results of centrifuge tests performed on piled raft foundation models. The model raft consisted of a circular very stiff plate; the model piles, embedded in loose saturated very fine sand, were non-displacement; some of them were instrumented with two load cells, the first at the pile head, the second at the tip or, alternatively, at mid-pile, to determine the distribution of load along the shaft. The fol-lowing models were tested: the rigid plate without piles, an isolated pile and the piled raft with 1, 3, 7 and 13 piles respectively. The results of the tests carried out have been analysed with the aim of investigating the raft-soil-pile interaction mechanisms and understanding how the load bearing behaviour of the piles as part of a piled raft changes compared to an isolated pile. The paper describes the details of experiments undertaken and some of the results.