ULTIMATE VERTICAL BEARING CAPACITY OF CLAYEY SQUEEZE BREAKDOWN USING RIGID-PLASTIC FINITE ELEMENT METHOD

Abstract

The relations of ultimate bearing capacity for foundations are specified in the guideline published by the Architectural Institute of Japan for design of building foundations. The rigid-plastic finite element method developed by Tamura and Ohtsuka has been employed to estimate the ultimate bearing capacity of footings. The characteristic of this method is that, in contrast to deformation analysis, it applies limited soil constants; only the strength parameters, such as cohesion and friction angle, are used since the method deals with the limit state directly by disregarding the deformation of the building and ground. In this study, a series of rigid plastic finite element analyses were performed to compare the ultimate bearing capacities of spread foundation for clayey squeeze breakdown obtained by simulations and the formulae of the Architectural Institute of Japan. The change in the failure mode of the ground was discussed considering the geometrical ratio between the width of the footing and the surface clay layer. In addition, inclined load was considered for clayey squeeze breakdown. The applicability of rigid plastic FEM to the assessment of ultimate vertical bearing capacity of clayey squeeze breakdown was demonstrated.