Abstract
There have been numerous studies on the designing of a pile raft foundation for nuclear power plants. However, the main focus of this study is the design of pile raft foundations for both containment and auxiliary buildings. The total area of the plant is divided into 4 quadrants where each quadrant is separated by 1m of dilatation. Since there are limited studies on the use of dilatation in pile raft foundations, this paper focused on the effectiveness of dilatation in pile-raft foundations of superstructures. This paper explores the design of five distinct rafts, one for each quadrant of the nuclear power plant, with each foundation section having specific pile arrangements and thicknesses. The central raft for the reactor building bears the highest load and requires thicker reinforcement. Advanced design methodologies were employed, including software like GEO5 software for geotechnical analysis and Tekla Structural Designer for structural modelling. In particular, the paper incorporates pile spacing of 2.5 meters and 5 meters for the containment and auxiliary buildings, respectively, with pile lengths of 20 meters for the containment and 15 meters for the auxiliary buildings. The findings demonstrate that with the combination of pile-raft, the differential settlement can be significantly reduced. The research concludes that dilatation in CPRF design can effectively mitigate the risks associated with foundation movement, ensuring structural integrity and long-term operational safety. Finally, the result of the pile and raft design shows that the total load of 26000 kN will be safely carried by the pile-raft foundation.