Foundations and Settlement

EOSC316 Engineering
Geoscience
Types of foundations
• Strip foundation
– or continuous footing; length >5 times width
• Pad footing
– usually designed to carry a single column
• Raft foundation
– generic term for all large area foundations
• Pile foundation
– to transfer loads to foundation soil or bedrock
• Pier foundation
– large column built up from bedrock. For large loads
• Shallow foundation
– where depth below surface is less than smallest
dimension
• Deep foundation
– depth below surface is greater than smallest
dimension
Bearing capacity terms
• Ultimate bearing capacity
– average contact pressure between foundation
and soil for shear failure
• Safe bearing capacity
– ultimate bearing capacity / suitable factor of
safety (usually 3 – 5)
• Allowable bearing pressure
– maximum load allowing for shear and
settlement effects
Why do we need to consider
Bearing Capacity?
 Foundation Failure

Rotational Failure Force

Resistance
Soil Heave
Stresses in rock and soil
• Stress induced by the self weight of the
soil
– σ = ρgh
– normal stress only
• Stress induced by applied loads
– easy to calculate the contact stress
– how does stress vary into the rock/soil mass?
Jürgenson’s pressure bulbs

Shear stress

Vertical stress
 Computational and
Finite Element Analysis
Jürgenson’s pressure bulbs
• For vertical stress
– significant stresses at 2 times foundation
width
– max stresses at contact
• For shear stresses
– max stress at a finite depth under the
foundation; depends on the type (half the
width for strip footing)
 Skyscraper that may cause
earthquakes

Taipei 101, Taiwan

Guardian, 2nd December 2005
Interaction of multiple footings

Small foundations will act as a single footing if they

are spaced less than five times their width
Problems with plate loading tests

• Boreholes in site investigation should be taken down to

at least 1.5 times the width of the proposed foundation
(or until rock is encountered)
Contact pressure

• Contact pressure has been assumed to be uniform

• If foundation is rigid
– for cohesive soils, stress intensity at edge is infinite
– for incohesive soils, stress intensity at edge is zero
• If foundation is perfectly flexible
– uniform contact stress
Types of failure
 Pile foundations
• Bored
• Driven
Precast Concrete
Driven Steel Tube
Bored pile
Rock versus soil
• Sound rock is capable of bearing most
normal engineering loads
• Soil is much more complex
– Elastic compression
– Primary compression
• due to expulsion of water
– Secondary compression
• due to re-structuring
Settlement

Problem can be divided into two parts:

1. value of the total settlement
2. rate at which this is achieved
• Leaning Bell Tower
at Pisa, Italy

• 30 m of marine clay sits

at a depth of 10 m below
the surface of the tower’s
foundations
Bell Tower, Pisa
• Imposed 500 kPa on clay with a ABP of
50 kPa

• Built in 3 stages;
– 1173-1178 First four levels
– 1272-1278 Up to seventh level
– 1360-1370 Completed

• Between 1930 and 2000 rate of tilt

doubled

• “There may be a worse substrate on

which to build a tower, but it is hard to
think what it might be” – Prof. John
Burland, Imperial College
 Engineering works at Pisa
• 1934 grout inject into
foundations
– sudden movement of
~10mm to south
• 1970’s groundwater
abstraction
– ~12mm movement to
south
• 1993 600 tonnes of
lead placed on north
side
• 1995 increased to 900
tonnes
Soil extraction at Pisa
Soil extraction at Pisa

Soil extraction moved the tower northwards by 442mm

 Remember:
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