Evolution of Piled Raft Foundation at Static Loading Condition and Application of Numerical Modelling: A State-of-the-Art Review

Piled raft foundation is a sustainable foundation approach in the current era due to the development of immense infrastructure. Initially, this foundation was primarily used for the construction of high-rise buildings in weaker soil bases, however, the application of piled raft systems is now extending to offshore and marine structures. This paper mainly concentrates on the review of available literature in the domain of the piled raft foundation and presents a critical review of the evolution of the piled raft from the past to till date. This state-of-the-art review starts from the early-age research and analytical works on the piled raft foundation. Various approaches suggested by several researchers are described here. The review also contains the experimental research conducted on piled rafts including the numerical analysis carried out on the existing case studies. The applications of different numerical software for the modelling of piled rafts are also described elaborately and the research related to the parametric analysis is accumulated together. The load sharing nature, interaction behaviour, and the influence of the loading system are reviewed separately depending upon the contribution of the research papers to the particular domain. There exist several design processes and selection criteria for the piled raft foundation and this is mainly due to the inadequate perception regarding the nature of the piled raft foundation during its overall applications. This literature review would be helpful for other researchers to acquire a clear idea of the behaviour of piled rafts and also would be useful to identify the future prospects of the piled raft foundation.