Closure to 'Bearing Capacity of Piled Rafts on Soft Clay Soils' by Luca de Sanctis and Alessandro Mandolini

摘要

The authors thank the writers for their interest in the paper and their laudable and detailed scrutiny of the results. Their discussion gave the opportunity to provide additional information on this delicate topic.rnIn the authors' view, the comments by the writers can be summarized as follows:rna. Finite-element analyses are not suitable to study boundary value problems where large displacements are expected; in this respect piled raft foundations are not an exception.rnb. In the axisymmetric case the values of β_(PR) are inaccurate.rnc. For the 3D piled raft, the failure load coefficients α_(UR) and the ratios β_(PR) are not consistent with Eq. (2) of the discussion; this was attributed to the finite element formulation adopted in the analyses that would have induced volumetric locking.