4 BEARING CAPACITY OF SHALLOW

FOUNDATIONS
WAI-FAH CHEN, Ph.D. WILLIAM O. McCARRON, Ph.D.
Professor and Head Senior Research Engineer
Structural Engineering Department Amoco Production Company
School of Civil Engineering
Purdue University

4.1 INTRODUCTION are of prime interest, then the fourth method must be used.
Brief descriptions of the first three procedures are given here.
.Foundations, like the structures or equipment they support, The slip-line method involves construction of a family of
are usually designed to meet certain serviceability and strength shear or slip-lines in the vicinity of the footing loads. These
criteria. Serviceability conditions dictate that the foundation slip-lines, which represent the directions of the maximum shear
should perform such that under normal operating loads the stresses, form a network known as slip-line fields. The plastic
structure or equipment it supports may fulfill its design purpose. slip-line field is bounded by regions that are rigid. For plane
These serviceability limitations are typically described by strain problems, there are two differential equations of plastic
settlement or other motion limitations. The strength criteria eqUilibrium and one equation for the yield condition available
have the purpose of insuring that the foundation has sufficient for solving for the three unknown stresses. These equations are
reserve strength to resist the occasionally large load that may written with respect to curvilinear coordinates that coincide
be experienced due to extreme environmental forces or other with slip-lines. If the foundation boundary conditions are given
sources. In most, but not all cases, the serviceability or only in terms of stresses, these equations are sufficient to give
settlement criteria and the strength criteria may be treated as the stress distribution without any reference to the stress-strain
unrelated design tasks. Serviceability is typically a long-term relationship. However, if displacements or velocities are specified
consideration for the foundation that may depend on time- over part of the boundary, then the constitutive relation must
dependent consolidation characteristics. Foundation strength, be used to relate the stresses to the strains and the problem
or bearing capacity, may be a short-term problem such as an becomes much more complicated. Although solutions may be
embankment construction on an undrained clay foundation or obtained analytically, numerical and graphical methods are
a long-term problem in which the maximum foundation load often found necessary (see Sokolovskii, 1965; Brinch Hansen,
may appear at some unknown time. 1961, 1970).
This chapter will consider only the strength .or bearing The methods described in the well-known textbooks by
capacity of shallow foundations. A shal10w foundation may be Terzaghi (1943) and by Taylor ( 1948), or the methods developed
defined as one in which the embedment depth of the foundation by Meyerhof (1951) are all classified here as methods of
is less than its least characteristic dimension. Usually, the limit equilibrium. They can best be described as approximate
bearing capacity of a foundation is determined by limit approaches to constructing the slip-line fields. The solution
equilibrium, limit analysis, or slip-line solutions. The variety of requires that assumptions be made regarding the shape of the
solutions available for a particular problem may lead to some failure surface and the normal stress distribution along such
uncertainty about which is the more appropriate procedure. In a surface. The stress distribution usual1y satisfies the yield
the following, the basis of these solution procedures will be condition and the equations of static equilibrium in an overal1
summarized and methods for their use presented. sense. By trial and error, it is possible to find a most critical
location of the assumed slip surface from which the capacity
of the footing can be calculated.
In addition to the yield condition, the limit analysis methods
4.2 METHODS OF ANALYSIS consider the soil stress-strain relationship in an idealized
manner. This idealization, termed normality or the flow rule,
At the present time, the analysis of foundations can be made establishes the limit theorems on which limit analysis is based.
by employing one of the following four widely used methods: The methods offer an upper and a lower bound to the
true solution. The upper-bound solution is calculated from a
1. Slip-line method
kinematically admissible velocity field that satisfies the velocity
2. Limit equilibrium methods
boundary conditions and is continuous except at certain
3. Limit analysis methods
discontinuity surfaces where the normal velocity must be
4. Finite-element methods
continuous, but the tangential velocity may undergo ajump on
The first three methods are used in association with stability crossing a boundary. Similarly, the lower-bound solution is
problems where the bearing capacity is sought. If, instead, the determined from a statically admissible stress field that satisfies
foundation settlement or stress distribution within the soil mass the stress boundary conditions, is in equilibrium, and nowhere

144
H.-Y. Fang (ed.), Foundation Engineering Handbook
© Van Nostrand Reinhold 1991
 Bearing Caoacity of Shallow Foundations 145

p
violates the failure condition. If the two solutions coincide, then
the methods give the true answer for the problem considered.
A good treatment of the subject is given by Chen (1975) and
Chen and Liu (1990). Strip Footing ~ ~ 5
The methods described above are related in a manner. Most
of the slip-line solutions give kinematically admissible velocity
fields and thus can be considered as an upper-bound solution
provided that the velocity boundary conditions are satisfied. If
the stress field within the plastic zone can be extended into the
rigid region so that the equilibrium and yield conditions are
satisfied, then the solution constitutes a lower bound. Thus,
slip-line solutions may be exact solutions. Shield (1955) has
shown this for many cases. The extensive work that has been
done on the stability analysis, including using the slip-line
B
-I
Fig. 4.1 Footing geometry.
method, is summarized in the book by Sokolovskii (1965).
Limit equilibrium methods utilize the basic philosophy of
the upper-bound rule, that is, a failure surface is assumed and base and the bearing capacity factors Nco N" and Ny represent
the least answer is sought. However, it gives no consideration the effects due to soil cohesion, surface loading, and soil unit
to soil kinematics and the eqUilibrium conditions are satisfied weight, respectively. Equation 4.1 is valid for strip footings
only in a limited sense. Therefore, limit equilibrium solutions subjected to vertical center loads. However, other geometries
are not necessarily an upper bound or a lower bound. However, are more common (Fig. 4.1). The parameters N are all functions
any upper-bound solution from limit analysis will obviously be of the angle of internal friction f/J. Terzaghi's quasiempirical
a limit equilibrium solution. Nevertheless, the method has been method assumed that these effects are directly superposable,
the most widely used owing to its simplicity and reasonably whereas the soil behavior in the plastic region is nonlinear and
good accuracy. thus superposition does not hold for general soil bearing
The limit analysis method itself has many striking features capacities. The reason for using the simplified (superposition)
that should appeal to researchers, as well as engineers. The method is largely the mathematical difficulties encountered
problem formulation is generally simple and an analytical when using conventional equilibrium methods.
solution is always assured. In simple problems, it has been
shown to yield reasonable answers when compared to limit
equilibrium solutions. Its capability of providing a means for 4.4 BEARING CAPACITY BY THE UPPER-BOUND
bounding the true solution is noteworthy. Finally, the method METHOD
is efficient and can be extended to solve more difficult footing
problems for which other methods have so far failed.
Three basic conditions must be satisfied in the solution of
a solid mechanics problem, namely, the stress equilibrium
equations, the stress-strain (constitutive) relations, and the
4.3 SOIL GOVERNING PARAMETERS compatibility equations. In an elastic-plastic material, however,
there is as a rule a three-stage development in a solution when
The bearing capacity of footings depends not only on the the applied loads are gradually increased in magnitude from
mechanical properties of the soil (cohesion c and friction zero (the initial clastic response, the intermediate contained
angle f/J), but also on the physical characteristics of the footing plastic flow, and the unrestricted plastic flow). The complete
(width B, depth D, length L, and roughness t5). For a Coulomb solution by this approach is cumbersome for all but the simplest
material, Cox (1962) has shown that for a smooth surface problems, and methods are needed to furnish the load-carrying
footing bearing on a soil subjected to rio surcharge, the capacity in a more direct manner. Limit analysis is a method
fundamental dimensionless parameters associated with the that enables a definite statement to be made about the collapse
stress characteristic equations are t/> and G = yB/2e, where y load without carrying out the step-by-step elastic-plastic
is the unit weight of the soil. When G is small, the soil behaves analysis.
essentially as a cohesive weightless medium. If G is large, soil In contrast to slip-line and limit equilibrium procedures, the
weight rather than cohesion is a principal source of bearing limit analysis method considers the stress-strain relationship
strength. For most practical cases, one can expect that f/J lies of a soil, but in an idealized manner. This idealization, termed
in the range of 0° to 40° and G will range from 0.1 to 1.0. These normality, establishes limit theorems on which limit analysis is
limits assume that e ranges from 500 to 1000 psf, and that the based. Within the framework of this assumption, the approach
footing width ranges from 3 to 10 ft. The dimensionless bearing is rigorous and the techniques are competitive with those of
capacity qo/ c depends only on the angle of internal friction of limit equilibrium, and in some instances are simpler. The plastic
the soil f/J, the dimensionless soil weight parameter G, footing limit theorems of Drucker et al. (1952) may conveniently be
base friction angle t5, surcharge depth ratio D / B, and the base employed to obtain upper and lower bounds of the collapse
dimensions Band L. load for stability problems, such as the critical heights of
For the most part, the bearing capacity of footings on soils unsupported vertical cuts or the bearing capacity of non-
have in the past been calculated by a superposition method, homogeneous soils.
suggested by Terzaghi ( 1943), in which the contributions to the The criteria that upper- and lower-bound theorems satisf}
bearing capacity from different soil and loading parameters are are shown in Figure 4.2 in relation to the solution requirements
summed. These contributions are represented by the expression for general boundary-value problems. The two main limit
theorems for a body or an assemblage of bodies of an elastic-
(4.1) perfectly plastic material may be restated as follows:
1. Lower-bound. The collapse load, calculated from a statically
where qo is the average pressure over the footing contact area admissible stress field that satisfies all stress boundary
A, q is the overburden or surcharge pressure at the foundation conditions, is in equilibrium, nowhere violates the failure