AN EXTENDED BEARING-CAPACITY EQUATION FOR SHALLOW FOUNDATIONS ON GRANULAR TRENCHES IN SOFT SOIL

摘要

In this article a method to estimate the bearing capacity of a shallow foundation on a granular trench in soft soil is proposed. The method is based on the interpolation of two equations: the first describing the bearing capacity of the shallow foundation on a homogeneous soft soil, and the second, on an infinitely wide layer of compacted granular fill above the soft soil. The proposed relationship was calibrated using finite-element (FE) simulations. A constitutive model for the soil, accounting for a pressure-dependent elasticity and an extended Drucker-Prager yield criterion, was considered. An analysis of the results showed that the proposed relationship gives more accurate estimations of the bearing capacity than those delivered by the conventional average-parameters method. The comparison was conducted for different dimensions of the granular trench. Finally, the relationship was used to predict the bearing capacity of a physical model test.