Best software for designing Pile Caps 1

[RiverBeav]

Just looking for advice on the best software to use for pile cap designs with complicated loadings on them. I do a lot of tower crane footing designs, and so I will be doing footing designs with large mat footings with tower cranes adjacent to building columns and corewalls. I usually use Ram Concept when doing this when I am just on soil but was looking for something a little better for addressing piles when the piles will be required to go into tension.

I have done cases with 3D strut and tie models when I am concentrically placed tower crane on a pile cap. My issue is the cases where you are in a building condition and nothing is concentric to the pile groups below, how do people analyze those mat foundations? My crane leg loads can be 500 to 800 kips each in compression and tension.

I have STAAD Foundation (but have never used it) and Ram Concept in the office. It seems like people also use SAFE but I don't know its capabilities.

Thanks for any advice on a good program to use.

 

[Agent666]

I've always put a pile right under the legs as that level of load isn't very large for a reasonable sized pile, then simply designed a beam element in the capping slab between the four legs to take out the pile moment due to the lateral loads. Designed using a simple 3d frame element model representing the pile cap and piles with some springs on the piles as advised by geotech. This way your pile cap tying everything together can also be thinner than the depth required for the hold down bolts as there are going down the pile with a good lap to the pile cage.

I can see it being more complex if you don't have the luxury of piles directly under the crane legs though. But you could still use the same beam in pile cap methodology and keep it as simple as possible.

 

[EDub24]

I haven’t used it yet but have you looked at Structure Point’s spMat?

 

[johnie134]

I think is engissol software is good for the design of the pile cap.