Settlements of shallow foundations on granular soil — an overview

Abstract

The main objective of this paper is to review the current state-of-the-art for predicting settlements of shallow foundations in granular soils. The traditional settlement prediction methods are critically reviewed. The Settlement '94 prediction session held in Texas clearly showed the deficiencies in the present settlement prediction methods, which generally overestimate the settlements and underestimate the allowable pressures, making the foundation designs very conservative. Some recent developments, including two deterministic methods and a probabilistic approach, are discussed as they have significant potential to improve the current state-of-the-art. Several empirical correlations relating the modulus of elasticity of soil and penetration resistances and standard penetration and cone penetration tests are summarized.