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Effect of Compressibility on Undrained Bearing Pressure of Circular Footing Resting on Two-Layered Clay

  1. Shiva Bhushan
  2. Joga Himavarsha

Abstract

The present study aims to investigate the behavior of a circular foundation on layered clay of varying properties. There are several solutions for the bearing capacity of footings on two-layered clays, but none of them considered the compressibility of the strata. An underestimation of the soil bearing capacity is the main cause of failures. The typical difficulty in estimating the capacity of soil is its complicated behavior attributed to the presence of distinct layers of soil. A thick and stiff layer (H) overlies a soft and weak layer, i.e., cu1>cu2 and E1>E2, where 1 and 2 represent the top and bottom layers, respectively. The bearing pressure (q) against settlement responses is evaluated using finite element axisymmetric analysis for varying stiffness ratio (RE =E1/E2), and strength ratio (Rcu = cu1/cu2). A wide range of variations in the bearing pressure factor (Ncf = q/cu1) for circular footings of diameter (D) is observed for different Settlement ratios (SR). It is observed that the Bearing pressure factor increases with an increase in stiffness ratio for a specific settlement and it decreases with an increase in strength ratio.

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