BEARING CAPACITY OF PILE GROUP AND PREDICTION OF NEUTRAL PLAN

The present work is on 3D analysis of piled raft foundation embedded in soft clay layers at Bangkok city, modeled using PLAXIS 3D program. Pile group model is similar to that suggested by Watcharasawe K. 2015. The research studied some parametric studies that affect on load – settlement curve for corner, edge and center pile, the position of neutral plan around pile group and finally, the normal force for different piles in one group with a view to developing a solution for bearing capacity and skin force calculations. These parametric studies are such as changing in pile groups lengths, pile groups diameters and pile groups diameter to spacing ratios. Consequently and due to the great research, this paper focused on calculating the position of neutral plan and skin friction force with different pile groups length. Also, the research focused on calculating the bearing capacity for different pile groups. The result obtained using 3D finite element method (FEM) compared with theoretical approach.