The effect of combined loading on the behavior of micropiled rafts installed with inclined condition

One of the major disadvantages of micropiles is their low lateral stiffness and flexural rigidity due to the small diameter. This limitation can be handled in current practice, by installing the micropile with inclined condition or providing a steel casing. Additional steel casings will increase the lateral load capacity of micropiles but increase the project cost as well. Thus, inclination of micropile which is relatively simple and cheap is recommended. In this paper, a comprehensive numerical analysis is conducted on the behavior of micropiled rafts installed with inclined condition under combined vertical and lateral loading. A FEM calibrated against full-scale axial and lateral field tests is used to conduct the analysis. The soil profile is soft clay soil underlain by a layer of dense sand. The study investigates the impact of several parameters which are as follows: magnitude of vertical loading, reinforcement type, inclination angle of micropiles, and number of inclined micropiles. The study reveals that increasing vertical loads causes continuous decrease in the lateral load capacity of micropiled rafts. When all micropiles installed are inclined, the positively inclined micropiles carry 79–86% of the total lateral load carried by micropiles, whereas the negatively inclined ones carry 14–21%. Inclined micropiles offer greater lateral load sharing ratio (α_h) than that of vertical ones, largest at θ = 45°. The effect of micropile reinforcement on improving the lateral performance is low compared to the effect of micropile inclination angle.