Raft Foundations Bearing capacity and settlement

 From IS -2950 The allowable bearing pressure of a foundation

shall be calculated according to IS 6403-1981 which is
Bearing Capacity of mat foundatoins.htm

From Bowels
 A mat must be stable against deep shear failure, which
may result in a rotational failure or punch shear failure.
This kind of failure should also be given importance as
Deep seated shear failure.

 The factor of safety can be used appropriately from the

following

From Braja.M.Das
 The net ultimate capacity of a mat foundation is

 Factor of safety for mats on clay, the factor of safety

should not be less than 3 under dead load or maximum
live load.
 Under the most extreme conditions, the factor of safety
should be at least 1.75 to 2.
 For mats constructed over sand, a factor of safety of 3
should normally be used. Under most working conditions,
the factor of safety against bearing capacity failure of mats
on sand is very large.

Tall building code

 A factor of safety of 1.5 shall be provided against
overturning and sliding under, (a) unfactored design wind
and gravity loads; and (b) 2.5 times design earthquake load
and unfactored gravity loads.
 The embedded depth of building shall be atleast 1/15 of
height of building for raft foundation and 1/20 of height of
building for pile and piled raft foundation (excluding pile
length).But this is requirement may be relaxed.
1. When the foundation rests on hard rock;
2. When there is no uplift under any portion of the raft
in any service load combination, and provided the
minimum component funding strata requirement Is
fulfill

 Maximum vertical settlement of raft or piled foundation

under gravity loads shall comply with the requirements of
IS 1904.

 The maximum vertical settlement may be relaxed to

125mmin raft or raft-piled foundation subjected to
maximum angular distortion of raft not exceeding 1/500,
and 50mm in rock.
Hong Kong code
 Raft foundations are relatively large in size. Hence, the
bearing capacity is generally not the controlling factor in
design.
 Differential and total settlements usually govern the
design. A common approach for estimating the settlement
of a raft foundation is to model the ground support as
springs using the subgrade reaction method.
 This method suffers from a number of drawbacks. Firstly,
the modulus of subgrade reaction is not an intrinsic soil
property. It depends upon not only the stiffness of the
soil, but also the dimensions of the foundation.
 Secondly, there is no interaction between the springs.
They are assumed to be independent of each other and
can only respond in the direction of the loads.
 BSI (2004) cautions that the subgrade reaction model is
generally not appropriate for estimating the total and
differential settlement of a raft foundation.
 Finite element analysis or elastic continuum method is
preferred for the design of raft foundations (French, 1999;
Poulos, 2000).

 Chu & Yau (2003) reported the use of large raft

foundations to support a hangar and workshops in
reclamation fill. The fill was vibro-compacted and the
allowable bearing pressure of the fill after compaction
was taken as 300 kPa.
 The structures were designed to tolerate a total
settlement of 300 mm to 450 mm with an angular
distortion less than 1 in 300.
 This project demonstrated that structures can be
designed to allow for large total settlement and a high
bearing pressure on reclamation fill is feasible.
 Wong et al (2003) described the design of a raft
foundation supporting a 29-storey residential building
and a 3-level basement.
 The raft was founded on completely to highly
decomposed granite with SPT N values greater than 80.
An allowable bearing pressure of 700 kPa was adopted
in the foundation design.

 The permissible deviation should not result in any part

of the foundation element extending outside the site
boundary.
 Subject to justification, the value may be increased to a
value not exceeding +or- 75mm.
V.Kameshwarrao
N.B.C 2016
 Where the engineering properties of the soil are
available, that is, cohesion, angle of internal
friction, density, etc, the bearing capacity shall be
calculated from stability considerations of shear;
factor of safety of 2.5 shall be adopted for safe
bearing capacity.
 The effect of interference of different foundations
should be taken into account. The procedure for
determining the ultimate bearing capacity and
bearing pressure of shallow foundations based on
shear and allowable settlement criteria shall be in
accordance with good practice [6-2(11)]. Depth
factor correction is to be applied only when
backfilling is done with proper compaction.
Rajapaske (rule of thumb for geotechnical engineering)

IRC 78
 The bearing capacity of the soil should be adequate. The
founding strata should be not less than 300 mm below
the lowest bed level at low water level.
 The soil profile of the channel where soil is to be laid
should be more or less than uniform so as to provide
uniform subgrade reaction from the soil.
 The bearing capacity of the soil should be adequate. The
founding strata should be not less than 300 mm
 The top of the floor shall be kept at least 300 mm below
the lowest bed level to prevent floor acting as a weir
when retrogression of levels take place.