Geotechnical Design (Shallow Foundation)
Geotechnical Design (Shallow Foundation)
Geotechnical Design (Shallow Foundation)
Shallow Foundation
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Introduction
Foundation is a structure made of concrete, steel or wood to transmit
loads to the underlying soils. A geotechnical engineer must ensure that a
foundation satisfies the following two stability conditions:
(a) Ultimate Limit State - The foundation must not collapse or become
unstable under any conceivable loading. (Check the bearing capacity).
(b) Serviceability Limit State - Settlement of the structure must be within
tolerable limits (check the ultimate settlement).
Shallow foundation is one in which the ratio of the embedment depth (Df)
to the minimum plan dimension, which is usually the width(B), is Df/B ≤ 2.5.
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Ultimate net bearing capacity (qult minus surcharge
of soil) is a pressure that capable to bring the soil to
collapse or failure. In practice, we NEVER USE
ULTIMATE NET BEARING CAPACITY TO DESIGN
FOUNDATION. This is because of spurious soil
variations, and uncertainties in soil test values and
structural loads. We usually divide the ultimate net
bearing capacity by a factor of safety (normally FS
=3) and name it as allowable net bearing capacity,
qallow(net).
Gross allowable bearing capacity ( qallow ) = Ultimate
bearing capacity / FS
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Modes of Bearing Capacity Failure in Soil
1) General Shear Failure – Dense soils
2) Local Shear Failure – Loose soils
3) Punching Shear Failure – Very loose soils
Assume a load apply on a dense and loose sand, respectively. The failure
mechanisms for both cases will be as follows :
B
Footing Footing
Failure plane: General shear failure Failure plane: Local shear failure
Qult Qult
Load Load
Collapse,
Settlement
Settlement
Pu = 5.14Bcu
Failure Failure
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Failure plane: Punching shear failure
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qult = qc + qg + qq
Ultimate bearing capacity of soil is the contribution of
cohesion, unit weight of soil below base of footing and
surcharge of soil
General Equation of Ultimate Bearing Capacity, qult:
qult = c Nc (rc sc dc ic bc) + 0.5B’ g1 Ng (rg sg dg ig bg) + g2 Df Nq (rq sq dq iq bq)
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Consideration of eccentric load :
B’ = B -2eB
L’ = L – 2eL
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Soil bearing capacity factors, N:
Nq = tan2 (45 + f/2)(e)p tanf
Nc = (Nq – 1) cot f (for f > 0o)
Nc = 5.14 (for f = 0o)
Ng = 2(Nq + 1) tan f
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Continue on rigidity index reduction factors, r:
In most of the cases, Ir > Ir(critical), which means general shear failure mode applies,
thus rc , rq, rg = 1.
rq =
rc
rq
rc rq
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Shape factors, s:
sc = 1 + (B’/L’)(Nq/Nc)
sg = 1 – 0.4 (B’/L’)
sq = 1 + (B’/L’) tan f
Depth factors, d:
dg = 1
tan 1 ( D f / B' )
d q 1 + 2 tan f (1 sin f ) 2
57.3
1 dq
dc dq (when f > 0o)
N c tan f
tan 1 ( D f / B' )
dc 1 + (when f = 0o)
(3)(57.3)
All the depth factors = 1 if the shear strength of the soil above the footing base is low
compared with the soil below the footing base.
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Inclined loads are produced when footing is loaded with both
a vertical V and a horizontal Hi components of loading.
Normally footing is subject to combination of wind loads Hi
and gravity loads V.
Q: Vertical force to footing
Load Inclination factors, i: Qh: Horizontal force along footing
m
Qh
iq 1
Q + B' L' c cotf
m +1
Qv
Qh L
ig 1 Q
Q + B' L' c cotf
Qh q B
1 iq
ic iq
f
(when f > 0o)
c
N tan
g2 Df
= P/A
qallow qallow
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Load Bearing Capacity of Shallow Foundation Based on Plate Bearing Test
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4.3 Principle of Shallow Foundation Design: Mat Footings
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4.5 Settlement
Settlement is practically impossible to be prevented.
However, as an geotechnical engineer, we have to ensure that
the settlement of foundation has not exceed the
serviceability limit state. There are many descriptions of
serviceability limit state depending on the function of the
structure.
Foundation settlement can be divided in 3 basic types:
uniform settlement, non-uniform settlement and tilt or
distortion.
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Distortion is caused by differential settlement. It is quantified
by d/l, where d is the maximum differential settlement and l
is the length over which the settlement occurs. The limit of
distortion can be calculated from:
d
Pmax R
l
The maximum tolerable settlement is as below:
Pmax 75 mm 100 mm
Pmax 50 mm 60 mm
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Immediate settlement:
Immediate settlement is also known as elastic
settlement. To determine the immediate settlement
of shallow foundations, we need to take into account
the effects of soil stiffness, embedment, and soil-wall
resistance. The immediate settlement can be
calculated as follows:
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Figure 1
Hc : Depth of clay layer B: Equivalent diameter of circular
A : Porewater coefficient footing =2(area of base/3.1415)0.5
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Table 1
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