Optimal placement of two soil soundings for rectangular footings

Abstract

This study uses a recently proposed algorithm for consideration of soil sounding locations in the bearing capacity estimations of spatially variable soil for rectangular footings. The objective of the study is to assess the possibility of indicating general guidelines for optimal soil sounding locations in the case of two soundings and rectangular footings. The possibility of proposing such general guidelines would be extremely valuable from the engineering practice point of view. Moreover, it would be promising for future studies concerning more complex foundation arrangements. For this reason, numerous scenarios are analyzed for a variety of vertical and horizontal fluctuation scales and a variety of rectangular foundation lengths. For generality of the results, two correlation structures are considered, i.e. the Gaussian and the Markovian ones. The optimal sounding location results are discussed. The observations indicate that, for a specified vertical fluctuation scale, all optimal borehole locations in dimensionless coordinates form a curve. This phenomenon can be utilized in practical applications. The potential applications of the obtained results and the directions for future studies in this area are also discussed.