Allowable Bearing Capacity for Shallow Foundation in Eket Local Government Area, Akwa Ibom State, Southern Nigeria

Abstract

P-wave and S-wave velocities were obtained from seismic refraction survey in the foundation layer of Eket, the study area. The Tezcan’s approach discussed extensively in the work was used in conjunction with the existing mathematical relations between elastic parameters and seismic refraction velocities for the study of foundation layers in the study area. Based on the results, the elastic constants, allowable bearing pressure/capacity, ultimate bearing capacity and other parameters in Table 1 were determined. The result shows that allowable bearing pressure increases with increase in shear modulus and shear wave velocity. The empirical relation between allowable bearing capacity and shear modulus shows that the allowable bearing capacity increases with depth. Comparing our findings with some ranges of safe allowable bearing capacities of similar non cohesive/granular soils in literatures, the second layer with allowable bearing capacity range of 72.56 - 206.63 kN·m-2 (average = 154.78 kN·m-2) has been considered to be the safe shallow engineering foundation in the study area. The empirical relations between allowable bearing capacities shear modulus and shear wave velocity, in conjunction with the inferred maps, which serve as our findings, will be used as guide in the location of foundations. The inferred ultimate and allowable capacities correlate maximally for the two shallow foundations penetrated by the seismic waves. This perfect correlation reflects the uniqueness of the method.