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NUMERICAL INVESTIGATION OF THE BEARING CAPACITY OF RING FOUNDATIONS ON INHOMOGENEOUS CLAY
Session: Foundations I / Fondations I
Maha Al Massri, UWO (Canada)
Timothy Newson, UWO (Canada)
Although the bearing capacity of ring foundations has been addressed in the literature, this is currently limited to drained soil behaviour only. Ring foundations are commonly used for supporting cylindrical structures such as oil tanks, bins, hoppers, bridge piers and silos. With more construction of large cylindrical structures occurring, ring foundations have the potential to become a very economical solution. The time and construction cost reduction of ring foundations compared to circular footings has motivated engineers to look for more guidance for the determination of the bearing capacity of ring foundations. This paper presents the results of a numerical investigation of the performance of ring footings on soft clay soils with increasing shear strength with depth. The study includes investigation of the effect of the footing diameter ratios and soil strength increase on the undrained bearing capacity factor Nc. This research has been conducted using finite element analysis with the software PLAXIS. The variation of Nc is shown to vary with both the geometry and soil properties. The research has both practical application to the design of circular foundations and academic interest related to the interaction of other closely spaced foundation systems on clay soils.
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