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AssigneesIndian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Unifytech Clobal, Inc
InventorsRavi Sankar JAKKA, Khalid BASHIR
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The present invention relates to the field of bioinspired geotechnics to provide an alternative to conventional vertical and inclined skirted footings and their method of installation. The invention provides tree root inspired substructure with improved load carrying capacity and a method of installation. Tree root inspired substructure herein defines a square or rectangular or circular or strip footing with closely spaced vertical/inclined micropiles. This hybrid substructure takes advantage of depth effect, width effect, arching effects, compaction and relative ease in installation on level and sloping grounds as compared to conventional skirt/bucket foundation. The micropiles attached to the traditional footing are spaced such that the trapped soil in-between behaves as a plug and major load shearing/transfer takes place at the level of tip of micropiles. Some load distribution also takes place along the micropiles and underneath the footing. The uplift, moment, lateral and vertical load carrying capacity gets enhanced due to the increase in the depth of foundation without much efforts on excavation. The proposed foundation can be cast-in-situ or precast or hybrid. Micropiles of the footing could be installed by either driving or boring. Micropile material can be solid/hollow steel or reinforced/unreinforced concrete, while the footing can be made up of steel plate/frame or reinforced/prestressed concrete. Appropriate selection of a bioinspired skirted footing saves a lot of material and construction time as compared to conventional skirted footing, leading to cost savings.
A bioinspired skirted footing comprises substructure base (1) square or rectangular or circular or strip footing with closely spaced vertical/inclined micropiles characterized in that the solid/hollow steel or reinforced/unreinforced concrete, footing of steel plate/frame or reinforced/prestressed concrete and multiple micro piles (2a, 2b . . . ) of different lengths attached to the base at different inclinations 0° to 90° and at different spacing from each other which is in ration of 1D to 6D, where “D” represents the diameter of micropile, which act as inclined structural skirts fixed to the edges of the foundation wherein closely spaced micropiles to a footing helps in plugging the soil and making it as a part of the footing, yields comparable load carrying capacity to the footing with structural skirts and thus replaces the structural skirts.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.