FACULTY OF INDUSTRIAL TECHNOLOGY

DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL AND WATER ENGINEERING

GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERING II

COURSE CONVENOR: S.T. NHANDARA

February – May 2018
3. Foundation Design

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Foundations
 A foundation is that part of a structure which
transmits loads directly to the underlying soil.
 The foundation is the MOST IMPORTANT
part of a building.
 The foundation is the HEART of a building.

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 Foundation design
The Rana plaza housed
five garment factories
that manufactured goods
for major retail
companies in Europe and
North America at the
time of collapse.
Causes of collapse were :
Shoddy construction
The building had too
many floors and heavy
equipment which the
foundation could not
24/04/2013 Dhaka, Bangladesh withstand.
Death toll: 1 134
Non fatal casualties: Around 2500

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Foundation design

Rana Plaza before collapse

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Foundation design

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Foundation design

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 Types of Foundations

Shallow foundations Deep foundations

Pad footings Piles

(isolated) Caissons
Combined footings
Mat or raft
Strip footing

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3.1 Shallow foundations

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Shallow foundations

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Shallow foundations

Strip footing

Combined footing
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Shallow foundations
 Shallow foundations transmit loads directly to the
immediate soil layers. Deep foundations are those which
by-pass weak layers and transmit loads to the hard strata.
 Foundations must be designed to maintain soil pressures at
all depths within the allowable bearing capacity of the soil
and also must limit total and differential movements to
within levels that can be tolerated by the structure
 Two main components that are considered in foundation
design are :
 Bearing capacity
 Settlement

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Bearing capacity of foundations
 There are two possible approaches to foundation
design:
The permissible (working) stress method as used in
BS8004: 1986
The limit state method on which Eurocode 7 (EC7) is
based.

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Permissible stress method ( BS8004)
 A lumped factor of safety Fs of the order 2 or more is used
to ensure that the foundation loads are significantly less
than the shear strength of supporting soil and that
settlements are not excessive.
 The relatively high value of the singular factor of safety
allows for:
 Uncertainties in load conditions and the likeliness of
unfavourable load conditions.
 Uncertainties in soil conditions and parameters (extent of
investigation)
 Consequences of failure
 Uncertanities in analysis methods (mode of failure, water
table, location)

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 Typical factors of safety
Structure F.S
Retaining Walls 3
Temporary braced excavations >2
Bridges Railway 4
Highway 3.5
Buildings Silos 2.5
Warehouses 2.5/3
Apartments, offices 3
Light industrial, public 3.5
Footings 3
Mats >3
Deep foundations With load tests 2
Driven piles with wave equation analysis 2.5
calibrated to results of dynamic pile tests
Without load tests 3
Multi layer soils 4
Groups 3

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Limit state method (EC7)
 It uses partial factors of safety
 Aims at ensuring that all relevant performance
requirements are satisfied under all conceivable
circumstances
Ultimate limit states - collapse and major damage
Serviceability limit state – concerned with
serviceability and minor damage
Design is based on partial factors of safety for each
element in the calculation
Both ultimate limit state and serviceability limit states
must be satisfied.

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Eurocode 7: Partial factors
Dead load x 1.0
Live load x 1.3
C’ 1.6 /1.4
tan 1.25

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Ultimate limit state
1) Loss of overall stability due to the development of a
deep slip surface within the supporting soil.
2) Bearing resistance failure caused by shear failure of
the supporting soil.
3) Failure by sliding under inclined or lateral loading.
4) Combined soil/structure failure or structural failure
of the foundation element.

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Serviceability limit states
 Excessive settlement (or heaving): excessive angular
distortion
 Vibration resulting in unacceptable effects such as
settlements and soil liquefaction

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Design considerations
 Footing design
1. Bearing resistance
2. Settlement
3. Sliding resistance
4. Overturning (eccentricity)
5. Overall stability (slope stability)

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 Factors that determine the bearing
capacity of a foundation
 Geometry of foundation
 depth of footing
 location of water table
 strength and compressibility of the soil
 Inclination of supported load or ground
 Magnitude of applied load

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Presumptive bearing capacity values
 Presumptive bearing capacity values were developed
from past experience on structures built on a specific
soil type.
 these values are conservative and can be used for
preliminary design or even for final design of small
unimportant structure
 the safe bearing capacity should be calculated on the
basis of the soil test data. But, in absence of such data,
the values of safe bearing capacity can be taken equal
to the presumptive bearing capacity
 for non-cohesive soils, the values should be reduced by
50% if the water table is above or near base of footing.

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Presumptive bearing capacity values

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Bearing capacity failure
Types/Modes of failure

 General shear failure

 Local shear failure
 Punching shear failure

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General shear failure
 Continuous failure surface develops between edges of
the footing and the ground surface.
 Therefore heave occurs on both sides of the footing
although the final slip movement would occur only on
one side accompanied by tilting of the footing.
 Typical failure mode for soil of low compressibility
(common failure mode in dense sand)
 Well defined in the qu from the area.

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General shear failure

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Local shear failure
 Significant compression of the soil under the footing.
 Slight heaving may occur next to the foundation
 Tilting of the foundation is not expected
 Associated with high compressibility soils (very soft,
soft soil, very loose) – Common in sand or clay with
medium compaction
 Characterized by the occurrence of relatively large
settlement qu not clearly defined.

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 Local shear failure
.

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General and local shear failure
 For general shear failure the actual soil parameters are
applied as is.
 For local shear failure the strength parameters C and
are modified to C’ and such that :

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Punching failure
 Common in fairly loose sand or soft clay
 Failure surface does not extend beyond the zone right
beneath the foundation
 Extensive settlement with a wedge shaped soil zone in
elastic equilibrium beneath the foundation. Vertical
shear occurs around the edges of foundation
 qu is not well defined

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Punching failure

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Bearing capacity evaluation procedure
1. Evaluate the ultimate bearing capacity pressure qu or
bearing capacity force Qu using relevant equations.
2. Determine a reasonable factor of safety (F) based on
available information variability of the soil, soil
layering and strengths, type and importance of the
structure and past experience.
Factor of safety is typically between 2 and 4
3. Evaluate allowable bearing capacity qall
qall = Qall =

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Bearing capacity evaluation procedure
4. Perform settlement analysis when possible and adjust
the bearing pressure until settlements are within
tolerable limits.

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 Terzaghi’s bearing capacity theory-
background
 Terzaghi (1943) presented an equation that could be
used to determine the bearing capacity of soil based
on its
 Cohesion
 Angle of internal friction
 Density
 Surcharge load

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3.1.1 Terzaghi’s bearing capacity
theory

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 Assumptions in Terzaghi's Bearing
Capacity Theory
 Depth of foundation is less than or equal to its width.
 Base of the footing is rough.
 Soil above bottom of foundation has no shear strength
 Load applied is vertical and symmetrical (non-
eccentric).
 The soil is homogenous and isotropic.
 L/B ratio is infinite
 Ground surface is horizontal

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Terzaghi’s bearing capacity theory

density term
surcharge term
cohesion term

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Terzaghi ‘s constants

Terzaghi bearing capacity factors

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Terzaghi ‘s constants

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Terzaghi effect of shape of foundation

 Continuous strip footing:

 Square footing:

 Circular footing:

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Terzaghi effect of shape of foundation
.

For: strip round square

sc 1.0 1.3 1.3

1.0 0.6 0.8

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Effect of ground water
 Determine the depth of stress triangle below the
footing H:
 Check whether H < WTL
 If the ground water is within the stress triangle, the
equivalent soil density is:

 Where dw – depth to groundwater measured from the

bottom of the footing
- buoyant density of soil =

- density of water

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Effect of ground water

ngl
B

dw
H

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Example 1 - Terzaghi
Using Terzaghi equation compute the allowable bearing
pressure for the 3m wide footing at a depth of 1.2m. The
soil parameters are
Consider both local and general shear for a safety factor
of 2.5.
What would be the allowable bearing pressure of a
square footing.

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Example 2- Terzaghi
 Determine the bearing capacity of a circular footing
3.2m in diameter at a depth of 1m. The soil properties
are . The water table
is 2.105m below the ground level.

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3.1.2 Mayerhof’s bearing capacity
theory

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Mayerhof’s bearing capacity theory
Meyerhof (1951, 1963) developed a bearing-capacity
after that of Terzaghi. Mayerhof’s equation included the
following factors:
 Shape factors -
 Depth factors -
 Inclination factors -

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Mayerhof’s correction factors

 Shape factors: Depth factors:

 Inclination factors

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Meyerhof constants

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Mayerhof constants

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Example 1 - Meyerhof
Using Meyerhof method determine the ultimate bearing
capacity of a 0.6m wide strip footing placed at a depth of
0.6m consider a 1m length. The slope of the ground
For the following soil conditions:
a)

b)

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3.1.3 Brinch Hansen’s bearing
capacity theory

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Brinch Hansen’s bearing capacity
theory
 Hansen (1970) presented a general bearing-capacity
which is readily seen to be a further extension of the
earlier Meyerhof (1951) work.
 Shape factors -
 Depth factors -
 Inclination factors –
 Ground factors –
 Base factors -

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Brinch Hansen’s constants

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Brinch Hansen constants

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Footings with eccentric loads
A footing may be eccentrically loaded from :
i. a concentric column with an axial load and
moments about one or both axes.
ii. The eccentricity may result also from a column that
is initially not centrally located or becomes off-
center when a part of the footing is cut away during
remodeling and/or installing new equipment (the
footing cannot be cut if an analysis indicates the
recomputed soil pressure might result in a bearing
failure).

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Footings with eccentric loads

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Footings with eccentric loads
The effective footing dimensions are:
L’ = L – 2ex B’ = B – 2ey

Effective footing area Af = B’L’

The minimum footing dimensions with a

column with dimensions wy and wx
Bmin = 4ey + wy B’ = 2ey +wy
Lmin = 4ex + wx L’ = 2ex + wx

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 Brinch Hansen example 1
A square footing is 1.8m x 1.8m with a 0.4m x0.4m square
column. It is loaded with an axial load of 1800kN Mx =
450kNm and My = 360kNm. The footing depth is 2m, the
soil parameters are :

The water table is at a depth of 6.1m from the ground

surface.

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Footings with horizontal loads
 For many industrial process the footings will be
subjected to horizontal wind load H in addition to the
vertical load V
 Where there is a horizontal load the inclination
factors should be determined because the net effect of
this load H will cause the footing to incline.

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 Brinch Hansen example 2
For the figure illustrated below determine the ultimate
bearing capacity. Soil parameters are:
Inclination constants are:

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3.1.4 Vesic bearing capacity theory

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Vesic bearing capacity equation
 The Vesic (1973, 1915b) procedure is essentially the same as the
method of Hansen (1961) with slight changes.
 The Nc and Nq terms are those of Hansen but is slightly
different.
 The ii, bi and gi terms are also different
 The Vesic equation is somewhat easier to use than Hansen's
because Hansen uses the i terms in computing shape factors si
whereas Vesic does not

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Vesic bearing capacity constants

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Vesic bearing capacity constants

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Mayerhof, Hansen and Vesic bearing
capacity constants

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 Example 1 - Vesic
Determine if the footing dimension of a 2m x 2m square footing
show below are adequate for the given loads if the required safety
factor is 3

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3.1.5 Stress beneath a point load

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Stress beneath a point load
 When a point load is applied to a footing, the soil mass
beneath the footing will be subjected to a stress that
varies with depth.
 The stress beneath a point load should be tolerable.

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Boussinesq equation for point load
 The vertical normal stress for any point beneath a
footing is given by Boussinesq equation as

 The term is called the Boussinesq

Influence factor IB and is dependant on the ratio

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Boussinesq equation for point load

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Boussinesq equation example
1. What is the vertical stress beneath a point load Q =
225 kN at depths of z = o m, 0.6 m, 1.2 m, and 3.0 m?
2. What is the vertical stress at point A for the two
surface loads Q1 and Q2

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3.1.6 Stress beneath a rectangular
area

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Stress beneath a rectangular area
 Newmark has shown that the stress beneath the corner of a
uniformly loaded rectangular area of length L and width B
is given by

 For the stress at the corner determine

 For the stress at the centre determine

 To obtain the vertical stress at the centre of the loaded
area, the area is divided into 4 equal rectangles. By
principle of super-position the vertical stress at the centre
of the loaded area is equal to 4 times the stress at any
corner.
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Stress beneath a rectangular area example
 A load of 500kN is uniformly distributed over a
rectangular area 1mx1.5m determine the vertical stress
component of stress at
a) A depth 2m below one corner
b) A depth 2m at the centre

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3.2 Settlement of foundations

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 Foundation settlement
Settlement
S = Se + Sc + Ss

Immediate Primary Secondary

Settlement Consolidation Consolidation
Se Sc Ss

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Foundation settlement
 Immediate settlement : occurs immediately after
construction – pronounced in granular soils.
 Primary consolidation : due to gradual dissipation of
pore pressure induced by external loading and
consequently expulsion of water from the soil mass,
hence volume change – applies to inorganic clays
 Secondary consolidation : Occurs at constant effective
stress with volume change due to rearrangement of
particles – occurs in organic soils

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Elastic settlement of foundation

Es = Modulus of elasticity
H = Thickness of soil layer

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Modulus of elasticity of soil Es
Soil Es kg/cm2 Soil Es kg/cm2
Clay: Loess 140 - 600
Very soft 20 - 150 Sand:
Soft 50 – 250 Silty 70 – 210
Medium 150 – 500 Loose 100-240
Hard 500 – 1000 Dense 480 – 800
Sandy 250 – 2500 Sand and gravel:
Glacial till: Loose 500 – 1450
Loose 100 – 1500 Dense 1000 -1900
Dense 1500 – 7200 Shale 1450 – 145 000
Very dense 4800 - 14500 Silt 20 - 200

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Modulus of elasticity of soil Es using in-situ
soils
Type of soil SPT (E kPa) CPT
Sand (normally consolidated) E = 500(N +15) E = 2 to 4 qc
Sand (saturated) E = 250(N+ 15)
Sand (over consolidated) E = 6 to 30qc
Gravelly sand E = 1200 (N + 6)
Clayey sand E = 320 (N +15) E = 3 to 6 qc
Silty sand E = 300 (N+ 6) E = 1 to 2 qc
Soft clay E = 5 to 8 qc

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Poisson’s ratio of soil
Type of soil
Clay, saturated 0.4 – 0.5
Clay, unsaturated 0.1 – 0.3
Sandy clay 0.2 – 0.3
Silt 0.3 – 0.35
Sand (dense)
Coarse (void ratio = 0.4 – 0.7) 0.15
Fine grained (void ration = 0.4 – 0.7) 0.25
Rock 0.1 – 0.4 (depends somewhat on type
of rock)
Loess 0.1 – 0.3
Ice 0.36
Concrete 0.15

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Computation of immediate settlement
Se
 The immediate settlement Se which occurs in sandy
soils can be computed using the Schertmann and
Hartman method (Schertmann method)

C1 = Correction factor for foundation depth

C2 = Correction factor for creep effects

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Schertmann method
Distribution of strain influence factor
For square and circular foundation:
Iz = 0.1 at z = 0
Iz = 0.5 at z = 0.5B
Iz = 0 at z = 2B

For foundations with L/B > 10

Iz = 0.2 at z = 0
Iz = 0.5 at z = B
Iz = 0 at z = 4B

For foundations with 1< L/B < 10 -

Interpolate the values

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Schertmann method
Distribution of strain influence factor
Schertmann obtained correlations
based on in-situ load tests between
deformation modulus and cone
penetration resistance for normally
consolidated sands as:

a) For square foundations (L/B = 1)

Es = 2.5qc

b) For long foundations L/B > 10

Es = 3.5qc

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Foundation settlement example
A footing 2.5m x2.5m supports a net foundation pressure of 150kPa
at a depth of 1.0m in a deep deposit of normally consolidated fine
sand of unit weight of 17kN/m3. The variation of cone penetration
resistance with depth is given in the table below. Estimate the
settlement of the footing three years after construction

Depth
(m) 1 2 3 4 5 6
qc (Mpa) 2.3 3.6 5.0 7.5 3.3 9.9

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Shallow foundation design
considerations
 Location and depth of foundation
 In deciding the location and depth of a foundation the
following should be considered:
i. The minimum depth of foundation shall be 0.50m
ii. The foundation shall be placed below the zone of:
 The frost heave
 Excessive volume change due to moisture variation usually exists within 1.5
to 3.5m depth of soil from the top surface)
 Topsoil or organic material
 Peat
 Unconsolidated material such as waste dump

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Foundations adjacent to water bodies
 Foundations adjacent to flowing water (flood
water, rivers) shall be protected against
scouring. The following steps to be taken for
design in such conditions:
i. Determine foundation type.
ii. Estimate probable depth of scour effects etc.
iii. Estimate cost of foundation for normal and various
scour conditions.
iv. Determine the scour versus risk, and revise the
design accordingly.

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Foundations adjacent to slopes
 When the ground surface slopes downward adjacent to
footing, the sloping surface should not cut the line of
distribution of the load (2H : 1V)

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Foundations adjacent to slopes
 The line joining the edges of lower and upper footings
should not have a slope steeper than 2H : 1V

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Footings adjacent to existing
structures
 Minimum horizontal distance between the foundations
shall be greater than the width of larger footing to avoid
damage to existing structure.
 If the distance is limited, the principal of 2H : 1V
distribution should be used so as to minimise the influence
to old structure.
 Proper care is needed during excavation phase of
foundation construction beyond merely depending on the
2H : 1V criteria for old foundations
 Excavation my cause settlement to existing foundations
due to lateral bulging in the excavation or shear failure due
to reduction in overburden stress in the surroundings of
the existing foundation.

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 Footings on surface rocks or sloping
rock faces
 For locations with shallow rock beds, the foundation
can be laid on the rock surface after chipping the top
surface.
 If the rock bed has some slope it is advisable to provide
dowel bars of minimum 16mm and 225mm
embedment into the rock at 1m spacing.

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 The end!!!!

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