Calculation of Bearing Capacity Factors of Strip Footing Using the Nodebased Smoothed Finite Element Method (NS-FEM)

Abstract

This paper presents an upper bound limit analysis procedure using the node-based smoothed finite element method (NS-FEM) for evaluating bearing capacity factors of strip footing resting on a cohesive-frictional soil. The soil behavior is described as a perfectly plastic Mohr-Coulomb material and it obeys associated flow rule. The smoothed strain field of strip footing problems is approximated by using a smooth function. The commercial software Mosek is employed to deal with the optimization problems which are formulated as well-known second order cone programming. The bearing capacity factors of strip footing and failure mechanisms in both rough and smooth interface are obtained directly from solving the optmization problems. The obtained results using the present method are compared with other numerical results that have been reported in the literature.