Reliability bearing capacity analysis of footings on cohesive soil slopes using RFEM

Reliability analysis of bearing capacity of a strip footing at the crest of a simple slope with cohesive soil was carried out using the random finite element method (RFEM). Analyses showed that the coefficient of variation and the spatial correlation length of soil cohesion can have a large influence on footing bearing capacity, particularly for slopes with large height to footing width ratios. The paper demonstrates cases where a footing satisfies a deterministic design factor of safety of 3 but the probability of design failure is unacceptably high. Isotropic and anisotropic spatial variability of the soil strength was also considered.     

The importance of distribution types on finite element analyses of foundation settlement

We investigate the effects of using different types of statistical distributions (lognormal, gamma, and beta) to characterize the variability of Young’s modulus of soils in random finite element analyses of shallow foundation settlement. We use a two-dimensional linear elastic, plane-strain, finite element model with a rigid footing founded on elastic soil. Poisson’s ratio of the soil is considered constant, and Young’s modulus is characterized using random fields with extreme values of the scale of fluctuation. We perform an extensive sensitivity analysis to compare the distributions of computed settlements when different types of statistical distributions of Young’s modulus, different coefficients of variation of Young’s modulus, and different scales of fluctuation of the random field of Young’s modulus are considered. A large number of realizations are employed in the Monte Carlo simulations to investigate the influence of the tails of the statistical distributions under study. Results indicate the type of distribution considered for characterization of the random field of Young’s modulus can have a significant impact on computed settlement results. In particular, considering different types of distributions of Young’s modulus can lead to more than 600% differences on computed mean settlements for cases with high coefficient of variation and large scale of fluctuation of Young’s modulus. The effect of considering different types of distributions is reduced, but not completely eliminated, for smaller coefficients of variation of Young’s modulus (because the differences between distributions decrease) and for small values of the scale of fluctuation of Young’s modulus (because of an identified “averaging effect”).     

Effect of interface characteristics on the influence coefficients of an embedded circular footing under horizontal and moment loading

By means of a semi-analytical FE approach an embedded circular footing under monotonic horizontal and moment loading is studied. In a non-homogeneous soil whose shear modulus is characterized by a power law variation with depth, horizontal, rocking and coupled modes of displacement, expressed in terms of influence factors are thoroughly examined. The exponent α that controls the shape of the stiffness variation with depth is termed shear modulus factor. Surface influence coefficients are considered for the situations where the interface between the soil and the footing is either perfectly rough or perfectly smooth. First, results of semi-analytical FE analysis in the case of rough footing are established and compared with those of another numerical method. Results of comparison show good agreement. Then, for different values of α the surface influence coefficients are presented for an embedded footing in perfect smooth contact with soil. The metacentre is referred to as the depth at which there is no coupling between the sliding and the rocking modes of footing deformations. Expressions for location and horizontal influence coefficient corresponding to this particular depth are developed and their variations with α examined. The paper finishes by showing the effect of interface conditions on the soil normal stresses developed beneath the embedded circular footing for the case of loading applied at the footing top.     

Stochastic design of beams on reinforced random earth beds in deterministic mode

One of the main soil parameters in analysis and design of foundations is modulus of subgrade reaction (MSR) which is a stochastic process. However, design engineers prefer a deterministic approach invoking mean of MSR and rather empirical factors of safety to account for the uncertainty. The present study includes the stochasticity in the deterministic designs by linking the factors of safety (in respect of maximum deflection and bending moment) to the allowable risk of failure through a Monte Carlo simulation on a lumped parameter deterministic model. A parametric study reveals that for a given risk level, the factors of safety are strongly dependent upon the coefficient of variation of MSR, and only mildly upon other geometric parameters of foundation system. This facilitates development of closed form equations for the upper bounds on factors of safety exclusively in terms of allowable risk of failure and the coefficient of variation of MSR.     

Interference effect of two nearby strip footings on layered soil: theory of elasticity approach

In recent times, rapid urbanisation coupled with scarcity of land forces several structures to come up ever closer to each other, which may sometime cause severe damage to the structures from both strength and serviceability point of view, and therefore, a need is felt to devise simplified methods to capture the effect of footing interference. In the present study, an attempt has been made to model the settlement behaviour of two strip footings placed in close spacing on layered soil deposit consisting of a strong top layer underlying a weak bottom layer. Theory of elasticity is employed to derive the governing differential equations and subsequently solved by the finite difference method. The perfectly rough strip footings are considered to be resting on the surface of two-layer soil system, and the soil is assumed to behave as linear elastic material under a range of static foundation load. The effect of various parameters such as the elastic moduli and thickness of two layers, clear spacing between the footings and footing load on the settlement behaviour of closely spaced footings has been determined. The variation of vertical normal stress at the interface of two different soil layers as well as at the base of the failure domain also forms an important part of this study. The results are presented in terms of settlement ratio (ξ_δ), and their variation is obtained with the change in clear spacing between two footings. The present theoretical investigation indicates that the settlement of closely spaced footings is found to be higher than that of single isolated footing, which further reduces with increase in the spacing between the footings.     

Derivation of material variability from settlement measurements

In pavement evaluation using non-destructive testing (NDT), a large amount of deflection bowls are analysed in terms of the elastic moduli of the layers. The results are used to evaluate the material variability, which could serve in an overlay design procedure based on the concept of reliability. The model currently used for interpreting deflection bowls is based on the random variable theory which neglects the spatial distribution of the elastic modulus of the material. Since the subgrade and pavement materials have a spatial distribution, the analysis of NDT could lead to an underestimate of the material variability. The random field theory, which is more adequate than the random variable theory, is presented and used to correct the NDT analysis. The pavement is modelled as a multilayer random elastic medium with, for each layer, a constant Poisson's ratio and a random shear modulus characterized by three statistical moments: average value, standard deviation and autocorrelation function. The stochastic integral formulation presented in the previous publications is generalized here for a multilayer system. The multilayer system is analysed with the random field theory and the covariance matrix of the deflection bowl is obtained and used to generate deflection bowls corresponding to the properties of the random field. These bowls are then interpreted with the current procedure and elastic modulus variabilities are computed. It is found that the current procedure for interpreting deflection bowls underestimates the variability of the subgrade, by a factor of 0.4–1.0. It is interesting to note that the average moduli of the Boussinesq layer and of the two layers are not affected by the type of theory used. The variability of the upper layer in the two-layer system is also unaffected for a small variation range.     

Analysis of footing resting on non-homogeneous soil by double spline element

A numerical method is proposed for the analysis of rectangular footing resting on an elastic soil layer. The footing is represented by double spline elements and the elastic soil medium by finite layers. The effect of the rigidity of footing and the non-homogeneity of the soil on the behaviour of such foundation system is investigated, and the results are presented in form of design charts such that they may be used for hand calculation for the estimation of the settlement of footings for a wide range of practical cases.     

Probabilistic analysis of strip footings resting on a spatially random soil using subset simulation approach

The failure probability of geotechnical structures with spatially varying soil properties is generally computed using Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) methodology. This approach is well known to be very time-consuming when dealing with small failure probabilities. One alternative to MCS is the subset simulation approach. This approach was mainly used in the literature in cases where the uncertain parameters are modelled by random variables. In this article, it is employed in the case where the uncertain parameters are modelled by random fields. This is illustrated through the probabilistic analysis at the serviceability limit state (SLS) of a strip footing resting on a soil with a spatially varying Young's modulus. The probabilistic numerical results have shown that the probability of exceeding a tolerable vertical displacement (P _e) calculated by subset simulation is very close to that computed by MCS methodology but with a significant reduction in the number of realisations. A parametric study to investigate the effect of the soil variability (coefficient of variation and the horizontal and vertical autocorrelation lengths of the Young's modulus) on P _e was presented and discussed. Finally, a reliability-based design of strip footings was presented. It allows one to obtain the probabilistic footing breadth for a given soil variability.     

按桩的割线刚度确定深厚覆盖土层中普通桩有效桩长

在提出的基桩有效桩长定义基础上,提出了桩的割线刚度控制法来确定有效桩长,并采用线弹塑性荷载传递函数,将其应用于确定深厚覆盖土层中普通桩有效桩长。分析了桩土刚度比K,桩径D,桩顶沉降量So,桩侧土极限位移Um,桩端土弹性模量与桩周土弹性模量比值Ko及土层泊松比μ对普通桩有效桩长的影响,其结果表明,除Ko和μ外,其余均有一定或较大地影响。为了将理论分析应用到工程桩中,对参数的取值进行了分析。     

Reliability Analysis of Excavation Induced Basal Heave

The present study deals with the reliability analysis of basal heave caused by excavation considering uncertainty in the soil properties. The case study considered in the present work has been analyzed deterministically by Hsieh et al. (Can Geotech J 45:788–799, 2008). Taiwan building code is adopted in the method for analyzing the basal heave failure. The random variables (undrained shear strength and total unit weight of clay) are assumed to be normally distributed and uncorrelated. A series of parametric studies have been conducted to calculate the reliability index on the basis of the matrix formulation for the second moment method by Hasofer and Lind (J Eng Mech ASCE 100(1):111–121, 1974) considering different coefficient of variation of undrained shear strength and total unit weight of clay layers. It has been found that for a particular value of coefficient of variation of total unit weight, the reliability index with respect to occurrence of basal heave failure decreases with increase in the coefficient of variation of undrained shear strength. Moreover, the reliability index also decreases when the coefficient of variation of total unit weight increases. It has also been found that the probability of basal heave failure is lower with respect to factor of safety equals to 1.2, as compared to factor of safety equals to 1.0. Sensitivity analysis shows that the undrained shear strength of the bottommost layer and total unit weight of the second layer are the most significant random variables affecting the reliability index. Guidelines are provided for reliability based design where, for ‘target’ reliability index of 2.5 and 3.0, the factor of safety can be chosen such that all the related uncertainties are taken into account, especially with regard to undrained shear strength of the bottommost layer and total unit weight of the second layer. Design guidelines have been provided for this purpose.     

Bearing capacity of strip footings on spatially random soils using sparse polynomial chaos expansion

A probabilistic model is presented to compute the probability density function (PDF) of the ultimate bearing capacity of a strip footing resting on a spatially varying soil. The soil cohesion and friction angle were considered as two anisotropic cross‐correlated non‐Gaussian random fields. The deterministic model was based on numerical simulations. An efficient uncertainty propagation methodology that makes use of a non‐intrusive approach to build up a sparse polynomial chaos expansion for the system response was employed. The probabilistic numerical results were presented in the case of a weightless soil. Sobol indices have shown that the variability of the ultimate bearing capacity is mainly due to the soil cohesion. An increase in the coefficient of variation of a soil parameter (c or φ) increases its Sobol index, this increase being more significant for the friction angle. The negative correlation between the soil shear strength parameters decreases the response variability. The variability of the ultimate bearing capacity increases with the increase in the coefficients of variation of the random fields, the increase being more significant for the cohesion parameter. The decrease in the autocorrelation distances may lead to a smaller variability of the ultimate bearing capacity. Finally, the probabilistic mean value of the ultimate bearing capacity presents a minimum. This minimum is obtained in the isotropic case when the autocorrelation distance is nearly equal to the footing breadth. However, for the anisotropic case, this minimum is obtained at a given value of the ratio between the horizontal and vertical autocorrelation distances. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

美国技术标准用弦线模量对我国技术更新的启示

用弦线模量计算地基变形是中国的原始自主创新。它改正了压缩模量和各种计算模型存在的问题,所以对计算结果有很大的改进。它依据土性物理指标用软件计算,是各种计算方法中最简单的方法。用于地基设计规范能够实现以变形控制设计的目标;用于黄土地区建筑规范,能够依据基础面积、基底压力、相邻基础影响等条件,并考虑地区差异、土性的微结构差异等条件真实地计算不同类型黄土的湿陷量,实现定量评价黄土湿陷性的目标。在中国对弦线模量研究的同时,美国在金属材料非线弹性变形计算中也研究并已经在其技术标准中采用了弦线模量代替杨氏模量,中国的同类标准也引用了它。这对在我国地基规范中采用弦线模量法进行技术更新,应该具有重要的启示作用。在简要介绍弦线模量法主要情况的基础上,进一步阐明这一观点。     

Modeling of Beams on Reinforced Granular Beds

The paper describes a mechanical model for estimating the flexural response of a strip footing, supporting a column (imposing a concentrated load), resting on a compacted granular bed overlying a reinforcement layer for example, geogrids, geomats etc. below which lies a loose soil deposit. The footing is idealized as a beam and the reinforcing element is assumed to have finite bending stiffness and negligible frictional resistance. The upper and lower soil layers are idealized by a series of linear and discrete springs (Winkler springs) of different stiffness values. To find the response of such a model the governing differential equations have been derived and expressed in a nondimensional form. A closed form analytical solution of the same has been obtained subjected to appropriate boundary conditions. Using the present approach the resulting solution for a degenerated case of a long beam is found to be identical to the same of Hetenyi (1946, Beams on elastic foundations, University of Michigan press, Ann Arbor, MI). Parametric studies reveal that the ratio of flexural rigidity of upper and lower beam and the ratio of stiffness of the upper and lower soil layers affect significantly the response of the foundation.     

Bearing capacity of square footings on reinforced layered soil

In the present study, an approximate method has been suggested to calculate the ultimate bearing capacity of a square footing resting on reinforced layered soil. The soil is reinforced with horizontal layers of reinforcement in the top layer of soil only. The pre requisite to the method is the ultimate bearing capacity of unreinforced layered soil, which can be determined from the methods already available in literature. The results have been validated with the model tests conducted on two layered soil compacted at different densities and the top layer reinforced with horizontal layers of geogrid reinforcement.     

Response of Euler–Bernoulli beam on spatially random elastic soil

A new method is developed for analysis of flexible foundations (beams) on spatially random elastic soil. The elastic soil underneath the beams is treated as a continuum, characterized by spatially random Young’s modulus and constant Poisson’s ratio. The randomness of the soil Young’s modulus is modeled using a two-dimensional non-Gaussian, homogeneous random field. The beam geometry and Young’s modulus are assumed to be deterministic. The total potential energy of the beam-soil system is minimized, and the governing differential equations and boundary conditions describing the equilibrium configuration of the system are obtained using the variational principles of mechanics. The differential equations are solved using the finite element and finite difference methods to obtain the beam and soil displacements. Four different beam lengths, representing moderately short, moderately long and long beams are analyzed for beam deflection, differential settlement, bending moment and beam shear force. The statistics of the beam responses are investigated using Monte Carlo simulations for different beam-soil modulus ratios and for different variances and scales of fluctuations of the soil Young’s modulus. Suggestions regarding the use of the analysis in design are made. A novelty in the analysis is that the two-dimensional random heterogeneity of soil is taken into account without the use of traditional two-dimensional numerical methods, which makes the new approach computationally efficient.     

弹性模量和泊松比对边坡稳定安全系数的影响

根据土的弹性模量和泊松比满足双曲线关系，给出了弹性模量和泊松比折减的基本原理。通过算例分析表明，调整泊松比对安全系数的求解是有影响的，而弹性模量的影响一般较小。算例亦表明，位移控制方法具有较高的稳定性和收敛性，在运用有限元强度折减方法求解边坡的安全系数时，建议采用位移控制方法来控制其收敛性。     

Scaled boundary finite‐element analysis of a non‐homogeneous axisymmetric domain subjected to general loading

The scaled boundary finite‐element method is derived for elastostatic problems involving an axisymmetric domain subjected to a general load, using a Fourier series to model the variation of displacement in the circumferential direction of the cylindrical co‐ordinate system. The method is particularly well suited to modelling unbounded problems, and the formulation allows a power‐law variation of Young's modulus with depth. The efficiency and accuracy of the method is demonstrated through a study showing the convergence of the computed solutions to analytical solutions for the vertical, horizontal, moment and torsion loading of a rigid circular footing on the surface of a homogeneous elastic half‐space. Computed solutions for the vertical and moment loading of a smooth rigid circular footing on a non‐homogeneous half‐space are compared to analytical ones, demonstrating the method's ability to accurately model a variation of Young's modulus with depth. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

双层广义Gibson地基轴对称问题求解

假定双层地基土体为弹性、不可压缩、剪切模量随深度线性变化的广义Gibson地基,在两层土体剪切模量表达式常数项与一次项系数之比相同条件下,采用Hankel变换,得到了表面分布轴对称荷载时地基土体应力、位移的积分形式解,讨论了下层深度、剪切模量等对位移的影响。获得的解可退化到半空间情况。     

稻壳灰加筋土力学性能研究

稻壳灰与土体混合应用,一方面废弃资源再利用,环保,又可增强土体强度。通过三轴试验,研究不同比例稻壳灰混合黏土及其加筋土应力?应变性能、强度特性以及不同应变水平下模量、偏应力及加筋强度比等土体变化特征。试验结果表明,随稻壳灰比例增加,混合土最大干密度显著减小,最优含水率显著增加。添加不同比例稻壳灰对加筋土抗剪强度有较大影响,10%～15%稻壳灰比例下,加筋稻壳灰混合土初始切线模量和应力峰值达到最大,抗剪强度较优。与土工织物加筋稻壳灰混合土相比,土工格栅加筋稻壳灰混合土偏应力及抗剪强度更大,土工格栅层数对土体抗剪强度增大效果更明显,对应的应力?应变曲线拐点也更突出。试样弹性模量与稻壳灰比例及筋材种类、层数有关,加入稻壳灰后,土体弹性模量增长显著,土工格栅加筋稻壳灰混合土较优比例下可增加1.5倍多,稻壳灰及筋材均能有效提高土体强度。随加筋层数增加,稻壳灰混合土加筋强度比明显增大,与围压关系较小。     

Developing artificial neural network models to predict allowable bearing capacity and elastic settlement of shallow foundation in Sharjah,United Arab Emirates

This research proposes the use of artificial neural network to predict the allowable bearing capacity and elastic settlement of shallow foundation on granular soils in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. Data obtained from existing soil reports of 600 boreholes were used to train and validate the model. Three parameters (footing width, effective unit weight, and SPT blow count) are considered to have the most significant impact on the magnitude of allowable bearing capacity and elastic settlement of shallow foundations, and thus were used as the model inputs. Throughout the study, depth of footing was limited to 1.5 m below existing ground level and water table depth taken at the level of the footing. Performance comparison of the developed models (in terms of coefficient of determination, root mean square error, and mean absolute error) revealed that the developed artificial neural network models could be effectively used for predicting the allowable bearing capacity and elastic settlement. As such, the developed models can be used at the preliminary stage of estimating the allowable bearing capacity and settlements of shallow foundations on granular soils, instead of the conventional methods.