Answer to Question #238319 in Civil and Environmental Engineering for Chella

Question

24. For a rigid pile cap with vertical piles at the middle and raking piles at the sides, what is the pattern of load distribution of piles in such arrangement?

Answer 1

Due to the effect of interaction of individual piles, the central piles tend to settle more than the edge piles when the pile cap is under a uniform load. Therefore, raking piles at the edge take up a higher fraction of total loads and are subject to higher axial and bending loads in case the pile cap is stiff. In the extreme case, failure of these raking edge piles may occur.