Abstract

The thickness of a pile cap is a major parameter in the design of the pile-cap foundation. A thin cap performs as a flexible slab by distributing the load on the piles unevenly, which does not accord with the concept of pile foundations. On the other hand, a thicker and therefore more rigid cap evenly distributes the load on the piles, as well as resisting bending moments and punching shear failure, but may impose additional load on the foundation. In view of these differences, there is a need to determine an optimal cap thickness such that the cap will distribute the load evenly on the piles without imposing excessive loads.
This thesis, therefore, used ABAQUS commercial software to develop a 3-D finite numerical model to simulate pile-cap foundations of 9 and 16 piles under variable pile diameter, pile length, and pile spacing for a range of cap thickness from 0.5m to 3m. The collected data is in the form of the load on individual piles, the load sharing between the pile and the cap, and the vertical displacement of the cap.