Bearing capacity of shallow foundations accounting for seismic excess pore pressures

Abstract

The method of characteristics has been used to develop a rigorous solution for the evaluation of seismic bearing capacity of shallow foundations resting on homogenous fully submerged soil accounting for the effect of earthquake-induced pore water pressures. The solution, derived with reference to both the Hill and Prandtl plastic mechanisms, is essentially referred to the bearing capacity factor Nγ, is of general validity and has been checked against finite element analysis results. An original empirical expression providing the corrective coefficient to be introduced in the usual trinomial bearing capacity formula has been proposed, accounting for the reduction in bearing capacity due to combined effect of soil inertia and earthquake-induced pore water pressures. It has also been demonstrated that, even considering earthquake-induced excess pore pressures, the soil and superstructure inertial effects are still decoupled. This allowed introducing an overall corrective coefficient accounting for both the inertial (soil and superstructure) and excess pore pressure effects, computed as the product of the corresponding corrective coefficients. Finally, original simple equations were derived giving a threshold value of the excess pore pressure ratio required to trigger a bearing capacity failure in the static post-seismic conditions because of the soil shear strength reduction.