Effect of soil stiffness on end bearing resistance of foundations in clay from large deformation numerical modelling

Abstract

Accurately predicting the installation resistance is of great benefit to a rational and economical design of foundations. This research performs a large-deformation finite-element analysis to investigate the effect of soil stiffness on the end bearing resistance in uniform clay. Different types of geotechnical structures and foundations, e.g., cone penetrometer, strip foundation, bucket foundation, and deep piled foundation are considered. Results show that soil stiffness has a negligible impact during shallow penetration but becomes pronounced at deep penetration. It is found that for strip footings, effect of soil stiffness is minimal, whereas the end bearing resistances of CPT and deep piled foundation with a partial plug are highly dependent on the soil stiffness. For a rough pile foundation, the resistance factor Nc,pf increases by approximately 30% as soil rigidity Ir increases from 50 to 500. For a bucket foundation, the effect of soil stiffness on the end bearing resistance falls between that of “shallow” and “deep” foundations. Based on the numerical results, empirical expressions are proposed to predict the end bearing resistance factor accounting for the effect of soil stiffness.