BEHAVIOUR OF SHALLOW STRIP FOUNDATIONS WITH STRUCTURAL SKIRTS RESTING ON DENSE SAND

Abstract

Skirts of sufficient stiffness may be used for improving the bearing capacity of an existing shallow concrete foundation or for obtaining enhanced bearing capacity of a new shallow foundation. The degree of improvement of bearing capacity for skirt foundations is likely to depend on several factors namely foundation base friction factor, skirt depth factor, skirt side roughness factor and soil compressibility factor. A series of small tank testing was carried out to study the effect of these factors on the bearing capacity of foundations with skirts. On the basis of these test results a modified bearing capacity equation for the centrally loaded foundation with skirts has been suggested. The results obtained from this proposed equation show that the use of structural skirts can produce enhanced bearing capacity ratios in the range of 1.4 to 3.5, depending on particular geometric and loading condition. INTRODUCTION BEARING CAPACITY EQUATIONS FOR SHALLOW STRIP FOUNDATIONS WITH STRUCTURAL SKIRTS RESTING ON DENSE SAND TEST APPARATUS, PROCEDURES AND MATERIALS RESULTS FROM TESTS USING SHALLOW STRIP FOUNDATIONS WITHOUT STRUCTURAL SKIRTS RESULTS FROM TESTS USING STRIP FOUNDATIONS WITH STRUCTURAL SKIRTS PREDICTED IMPROVEMENTS DERIVED FROM THE USE OF STRUCTURAL SKIRTS DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS REFERENCES