Bearing Capacity of Two-Layered Artificial Ground with Firm Crust and Weak Subgrade Under Circular Pressure

Classical bearing capacity expressions can not afford variant engineering requests, since they were deducted under hypotheses of strip footing on homogeneous soil. An often met case was taken into account that circular footing on two-layered ground, which has firm crust and weak subgrade. Weighted method and layered method were used in capacity deduction, respectively. The former counts layered soils as single layer of weighted structure and material parameters. But it is restricted to conditions with close strength to each layer. The latter is preferred in engineering calculation, which regards the whole bearing capacity as subgrade’s capacity under the influence of the upper layer. Thus the issue is transformed to K. Terzaghi model plus stress reduction and dispersion effects. At last, the expressions gained from both methods and finite element analysis (FEA) were used in an example calculation, respectively. It approves layered calculating method and suggests the corresponding security coefficient based on elastoplastic FEA results.