Drag Forces on Drilled Shafts Due to Heavily Loaded Mat Foundations and the Influence of Neighboring Shafts on Drag Forces

With the growing trend of urbanization, it has become common practice to construct structures close to each other. This situation may lead to construction of heavily loaded shallow foundation very close to another structure resting on deep foundations. In such cases, the stress zone of the shallow foundation due to heavy load on it would influence the adjacent deep foundations. However, not much published literature is available for the interaction of shallow and deep foundations constructed next to each other. A comprehensive study was carried out by the authors for a similar real life scenario consisting of the construction of a mat foundation adjacent to a group of drilled shafts. They concluded that the drilled shafts will be effected in terms of additional lateral loads and drag forces due to the load on the mat foundation. This paper presents a part of the results of the comprehensive study that shows distribution of horizontal stress and drag forces on the drilled shafts due to heavy load applied on the adjacent mat foundation. Also, the effects of neighboring shafts on the drag forces have been presented.