Hi,
I am trying to model a concrete foundation slab, supported by concrete piles. The sole purpose of the model is to find design bending moments in the slab when taking pile deformation under loading into account.
The approach I use has previously worked fine for smaller foundation slabs: The slab is modelled as a panel, which is then nodal supported with nonlinear, bilinear force-displacement supports, calibrated to the given deformation and load bearing capacity of the specific pile using some geotechnical considerations.
Untill now, my models have only considered compression of piles (no uplift from ground water), so i've used a symmetrical force-displacement relation for modeling of the pile support- Although this gave a model stiffness of the pile in tension that was much larger the reality, this method helped the calculation proces converge and all piles still ended up in compression, so no sweat there.
Now, I have a somewhat larger foundation slab with 400+ piles and upwards ground water pressure. The piles have different load bearing capacities in tension and compression - and there is 2 types of piles (one primarily for compression, one primarily for tension). Thus, I've created suitable nonlinear bilinear non-symmetrical force-displacement relations for the supports.
But my nonlinear calculations won't converge, not even for a simple test of uniform surface loading of the slab. Testing with pinned static supports rather than the nonlinear ones yields calculation results, so I guess the problem lies with the combination of geometry, nonlinear supports and the analysis parameters(?).
I've provided the mentioned test model (I'm using RSA Pro 2012). Can anyone point me in the right direction?
Regards,
Thomas
PS: For convenience is here listed the node lists:
"Compression" piles:
1to183 185to191By2 193to215 225to247 259to274 276to317 319to323 328to340 342 343 347to415 425to436
"Tension" piles:
184to192By2 216to224 248to258 324to327 341 344to346 416to424
All piles:
1to274 276to317 319to436
