Lower Bound Limit Analysis of Strip Footings Resting on Cohesive Soils

Abstract

A Novel lower bound approach is presented for the bearing capacity determination of strip footings resting on cohesive soils. The approach consists of the combination of lower bound limit theory and a mesh-free technique. In the presented method there is no need of mesh in the traditional sense and the constraints at the element discontinuities are omitted. A statically admissible stress field is constructed by the combination of mesh-free technique and the nodal integration scheme. The generated field is guaranteed to be lower bound by controlling the non-yielding condition at the entire domain. The solutions of the presented approach are compared with some well-known solutions, to demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of the method.