A parametric study of undrained stability of a spherical cavity in clays is investigated by finite elementlimit analysis with an axisymmetric condition. Influences of cover depth ratio of cavity and dimensionlessoverburden factor on predicted failure mechanisms and dimensionless load factor are examined.It is found that a previously recommended and up-to-date lower bound solution to the problem wassignificantly inaccurate for practice use. Thus, an accurate approximate solution to the problem is proposedfrom nonlinear regression analysis of the computed average bound solutions. New cavity stabilityfactors for the soil cohesion and soil unit weight are proposed. New findings are revealed for the threedimensionaleffect of the cavity shape on these factors between the axisymmetric and plane strainconditions, and their applications to the undrained stability evaluation of cavity problems in practice aredescribed.
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