Evaluation of Piled Raft Behavior based on the Taguchi Method subjected to Combination of Vertical and Horizontal Loads

The results of an ongoing FEM parametric study are presented regarding the dependence of the resulting piled raft behavior under lateral load and combination of loads on pile diameter, pile length, arrangement of piles and raft thickness. Taguchi method with Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was employed to calculate the contribution ratio of these factors on the lateral displacement of piled raft. The obtained results of this study show that the pile diameter is an effective factor in horizontal deformation of the piled raft under pure horizontal load. However, in the case of load combinations, the pile length has the highest participation ratio in reducing the horizontal deformations.