Effective installation of micropiles to enhance bearing capacity of micropiled raft

While micropiles are used in many geotechnical projects, as ground reinforcement rather than as structural elements, field engineers have reported that the bearing capacity of micropiled rafts greatly exceeds the range of common ground reinforcement. This is known to be due to the confining effects of micropiles from the interaction between the ground and the micropiles, which extends the failure area of the ground significantly. Utilizing micropiles as ground reinforcement can excessively underestimate the structural contribution of the footing in a micropiled-raft system to the bearing capacity. This study investigates the support characteristics of a micropiled raft through model tests and a numerical analysis. The support behavior of the micropiled raft is evaluated for various conditions, such as soil type, pile length, and installation angle. It is found that the micropiles modify the failure behavior of the ground considerably, and that the bearing resistance can be enhanced by considering the appropriate failure mode, installation angle, and pile length.