Undrained Stability of Ring Foundations: Axisymmetry,

Anisotropy, and Nonhomogeneity

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Suraparb Keawsawasvong1; Jim Shiau2; Chayut Ngamkhanong3; Van Qui Lai4; and Chanachai Thongchom5

Abstract: Ring foundations are widely used to support various types of offshore structures because of the cost-effective reason. Unlike
the traditional circular foundations, very few studies were reported with regard to the bearing capacity of ring foundations. In addition,
the study on the stability effects of anisotropic and nonhomogeneous clays is yet to be found in the current literature. The purpose of the
technical note is therefore to bridge the current research gap. By using the robust lower and upper bound finite-element limit analysis in
axisymmetric conditions, new stability solutions of ring footings on anisotropic and nonhomogeneous clays are obtained using dimen-
sionless parameters. The associated failure mechanisms are also examined and discussed, while the design equations are proposed for
predicting the bearing capacity of ring foundations. The findings in this study provide a reliable solution to improve the current design
standard for ring footings in anisotropic and nonhomogeneous clays. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)GM.1943-5622.0002229. © 2021 American
Society of Civil Engineers.
Author keywords: Bearing capacity; Ring footing; Anisotropy; Nonhomogeneity; Limit analysis.

Introduction
Soils generally exhibit certain degrees of strength anisotropy (Ladd
and Degroot 2003). Depending on the type of soil structures, the
stability effects of anisotropic strength have become an important
research topic being investigated by many researchers.
Ladd (1991) and Ladd and Degroot (2003) reported that the
undrained shear strength of clay is directly related to the orien-
tation of the major principal stress to the vertical axis (or depo-
sitional direction). They proposed an empirical correlation
between the plasticity index of clay (PI) and the three undrained
shear strengths obtained from triaxial compression suTC, triaxial
extension suTE, and direct simple shear suDSS. Casagrande and
Carillo (1944) and Lo (1965) introduced a formulation of the an-
isotropic undrained shear strength which is a function of the ori-
entation angle (δ) of the major principal stress with the vertical
axis. Using the anisotropic formulation by Casagrande and
Carillo (1944) and Lo (1965), various soil stability problems
have since been studied for bearing capacity of foundations
1
Lecturer, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Thammasat School of Engineer-
ing, Thammasat Univ., Pathumthani 12120, Thailand. ORCID: https://orcid
.org/0000-0002-1760-9838. Email: ksurapar@engr.tu.ac.th
2
Associate Professor, School of Civil Engineering and Surveying, Univ.
Southern Queensland, QLD 4350, Australia (corresponding author). ORCID:
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9220-3184. Email: jim.shiau@usq.edu.au
3
Lecturer, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Chula-
longkorn Univ., Bangkok 10330, Thailand. ORCID: https://orcid.org
/0000-0003-1321-9952. Email: chayut.ng@chula.ac.th
4 (2003) to demonstrate the performance of ring footings under ec-
Lecturer, Faculty of Civil Engineering, Vietnam National University
Ho Chi Minh City (VNU-HCM), Linh Trung Ward, Thu Duc District,
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam 740128. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000
-0002-6814-5797. Email: lvqui@hcmut.edu.vn
5
Lecturer, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Thammasat School of Engineer-
ing, Thammasat Univ., Pathumthani 12120, Thailand. ORCID: https://orcid
.org/0000-0001-8696-8992. Email: tchanach@engr.tu.ac.th
Note. This manuscript was submitted on April 15, 2021; approved
on August 23, 2021; published online on November 8, 2021. Discussion
period open until April 8, 2022; separate discussions must be submitted
for individual papers. This paper is part of the International Journal of
Geomechanics, © ASCE, ISSN 1532-3641.
(Al-Shamrani 2005; Davis and Christian 1971; Reddy and Rao
1981; Ukritchon and Keawsawasvong 2018, 2019a; Yang and
Du 2016), pile foundation (Ukritchon and Keawsawasvong
2020a), the stability of excavations (Hsieh et al. 2008; Su et al.
1998; Ukritchon et al. 2003), tunnel and trapdoor stabilities (Pan
and Dias 2016; Keawsawasvong and Ukritchon 2021; Ukritchon
and Keawsawasvong 2019b, 2020b), and stability of slopes (Chen
et al. 1975; Law 1978; Nian et al. 2008; Su and Liao 1999).
A novel failure criterion considering the complex inherent of an-
isotropic clay was recently developed by Krabbenhoft et al. (2019)
using the concept of the generalized Tresca criterion for an un-
drained total stress analysis (Krabbenhoft and Lyamin 2015).
This failure criterion is named as Anisotropic Undrained Shear
(AUS) model, and it has been implemented into the latest finite-
element limit analysis technique. Some of the applications may
include the pullout capacity of caissons (Keawsawasvong et al.
in press; Keawsawasvong and Lawongkerd 2021) and the stability
of excavations in anisotropic clay (Yodsomjai et al. 2021).
It is well known that the use of ring footings can significantly
lower the material cost leading to the economic benefit of a con-
struction project. At present, ring footings are widely used to sup-
port several types of complex structures such as cooling towers,
storage tanks, radar stations, transmission towers, chimneys,
silos, and bridge piers. The early experimental studies using
small-scale laboratory model tests of ring footings were per-
formed by Saha (1978) to investigate the load–settlement response
of a ring footing resting on a sand mass. Later, the bearing capacity
of eccentrically loaded ring footings was presented by Saran et al.
centric and oblique loading by using small-scale model tests. An
analytical technique called the method of characteristics was em-
ployed by Kumar and Ghosh (2005) to investigate the collapse
load of ring footings under the fully rough and fully smooth inter-
face conditions.
Zhao and Wang (2008) conducted a series of bearing capacity
solutions of ring footings on cohesionless soil using the finite dif-
ference method (FDM), which was also used by Benmebarek et al.
(2012) and Remadna et al. (2017) to determine the bearing capacity
factors of ring foundations under associated and nonassociated flow

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 rules. The complete set of bearing capacity factors (Nc), (Nq), and
(Nγ) for ring foundations on cohesive–frictional soils was deter-
mined by Kumar and Chakraborty (2015) and Keshavarz and
Kumar (2017). The bearing capacity solutions of annular foot-
ings embedded in clay were presented by Benmebarek et al.
(2017), Lee et al. (2016a), and Keawsawasvong and Lai
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Problem Statement
The problem definition of a rigid ring footing on anisotropic and
nonhomogeneous clay with linearly increasing shear strength is
shown in Fig. 1. A ring footing with internal radius ri and external
radius ro is subjected to the vertical force Q. As a result, the vertical

(2021). For ring footings on layered soils such as sand overlying uniform pressure q can be written in the form of ri and ro as follows:
clay, two-layered clays, and two-layered sands were investigated
Q
by Das et al. (2021), Lee et al. (2016b), Khatri et al. (in press), q= (1)
and Yang et al. (2020). π(ro2 − ri2 )
To the best of our knowledge, very few studies were reported in
the literature in relation to the effect of clay strength anisotropy on In the AUS failure criterion (Krabbenhoft et al. 2019), there are
three anisotropic undrained shear strengths, namely the triaxial
the bearing capacity of ring footings. In addition, the undrained
compression suTC, the triaxial extension suTE, and the direct simple
strength of clay generally increases with depth because of an in-
crease in the in situ vertical effective stress in the ground. To por-
tray these important aspects of the strength nonhomogeneity and
the undrained strength anisotropy, this paper aims to provide new
solutions for predicting the bearing capacity factor of rigid ring
footings on anisotropic and nonhomogeneous clays with linearly
increasing shear strength.

Fig. 3. Model domain of a rigid ring footing.

Table 1. Comparison of bearing capacity factors N (ri/ro = 0 and re = 1)

Tani and Hu Houlsby Present study
Fig. 1. Problem definition of a rigid ring footing resting on anisotropic ρro/ Craig et al. and Martin Lee et al.
and nonhomogeneous clay. suTC0 (1995) (1999) (2003) (2016a) LB UB Avg
1 7.70 7.83 7.63 7.64 7.29 7.30 7.29
2.5 — — 9.23 9.23 8.85 8.86 8.86
5 11.38 — 11.33 11.42 10.93 10.95 10.94
15 18.70 18.60 — 18.03 17.37 17.40 17.39

Fig. 2. Generalized Tresca surface used in the AUS failure criterion

based on Krabbenhoft and Lyamin (2015) and Krabbenhoft et al.
(2019). Fig. 4. Comparison of bearing capacity factors N (re = 1).

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(a) (b)

(c) (d)

(e) (f )

Fig. 5. Effect of ri/ro on the bearing capacity factors N: (a) ρro/suTC0 = 0; (b) ρro/suTC0 = 1; (c) ρro/suTC0 = 2.5; (d) ρro/suTC0 = 5; (e) ρro/suTC0 = 10;
and (f) ρro/suTC0 = 15.

shear suDSS. According to Krabbenhoft et al. (2019) and Ladd 2re

rs = (2)
(1991), two anisotropic strength ratios can be defined through 1 + re
re = suTE/suTC and rs = suDSS/suTC for anisotropic clays. Using the
harmonic mean, a relation between re and rs is presented in the fol- As suggested by Krabbenhoft et al. (2019), the range of re is be-
lowing equation: tween 0.5 and 1, and it is the only parameter to be considered in the

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(a) (b)

(c) (d)

Fig. 6. Effect of ρro/suTC0 on the bearing capacity factors N: (a) ri/ro = 0; (b) ri/ro = 0.25; (c) ri/ro = 0.5; and (d) ri/ro = 0.75.

analysis. A change of re can result in a change of the failure surface
of the AUS failure criterion, as shown in Fig. 2. It is to be noted that
the AUS failure criterion is equivalent to the Tresca failure criterion
when re = 1 (i.e., suTC = suTE = suDSS).
A unique approach in this study is the inclusion of a strength
gradient for the anisotropic clay. The three anisotropic undrained
shear strengths (suTC, suTE, and suDSS) increasing linearly with the
depth can be expressed in Eqs. (3)–(5) as follows:
suTC (z) = suTC0 + ρz
suTE (z) = suTE0 + re ρz
suDSS (z) = suDSS0 + rs ρz
where suTC0, suTE0, and suDSS0 = anisotropic undrained shear
strengths at the ground surface; ρ = linear strength gradient;
and z = depth measured from the ground surface. With the defi-
nitions in Eqs. (3)–(5), the bearing capacity factor N, which is a
function of the three dimensionless parameters, is shown in the
following equation:


q ri ρro
N= ∝f , , re (6)
suTC0 ro suTC0
where (N = q/suTC0) represents the bearing capacity factor; ri/ro rep-
resents the radius ratio; ρro/suTC0 represents the strength gradient
ratio; and re represents the anisotropic strength ratio. The practical
range of the three dimensionless ratios are selected as (ri/ro = 0,
0.25, 0.33, 0.5, and 0.75), (ρro/suTC0 = 0, 1, 2.5, 5, 10, and 15),
and (re = 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, 0.9, and 1) for the parametric analysis.
Note that the selected ranges of ri/ro and ρro/suTC0 are based on the
previous study by Lee et al. (2016a) in order to cover all possible
dimensions of ring foundations and all possible soil strength ratios.
(3) For the range of re, the selected values from re = 0.5 (highly aniso-
tropic) to 1 (isotropic) are based on the suggested range by
(4) Krabbenhoft et al. (2019) to cover all possible ranges of soil
strength anisotropy. Using nonlinear regression analysis, a design
(5) equation for estimating accurate solutions of the bearing capacity
factor of ring footings on anisotropic and nonhomogeneous clay
was developed for practical uses.
Numerical Methods
Numerical bearing capacity solutions of ring footings on aniso-
tropic and nonhomogeneous clays are derived using the OptumG2
(version OPTUM G2 2021_v2.1.2.0_2021.03.29) FELA software
(Krabbenhoft et al. 2015). The built-in AUS model is adopted as
a failure criterion for the anisotropic clay. Fig. 3 shows a schematic

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(a)
(c)
Fig. 7. Effect of re on the bearing capacity factors N: (a) ρro/suTC0 = 0; (b) ρro/suTC0 = 1; (c) ρro/suTC0 = 10; and (d) ρro/suTC0 = 15.
diagram of the rigid ring footing resting on clay. The ring footing is
modeled in an axisymmetric condition by incorporating only half
of the domain, where the line of axial symmetry is set to be located
at the left of the domain. The clay is discretized into several six-
noded triangular elements in upper bound (UB) analysis, whereas
three-noded triangular elements are used in lower bound (LB) anal-
ysis. Note that the objective of the UB and LB analyses is to opti-
mize the collapse load Q.
With regards to the boundary conditions for the axisymmetric
model, the left (line of axial symmetry) and right boundaries are
free to move only in the vertical direction. The bottom boundary is
set to be no movement in both vertical and horizontal directions.
The top boundary is a free surface. To avoid numerical errors result-
ing from the boundary effect, the sizes of the domains are chosen to
be large enough in all analyses. The rigid plate element is adopted for
the ring footing and the soil–structure interface is assumed to be a
perfectly rough interface condition. The clay layer is modeled by
solid elements obeying the rigid-perfectly plastic AUS material
with an associated flow rule. The fan mesh feature in the program
is also activated at both corners of the footing. This would improve
the numerical accuracy of the computed results.
The automatic mesh adaptivity technique (Ciria et al. 2008) is ac-
tivated to improve the accuracy and correctness of the computed UB
and LB solutions. The current study uses five iterations in which 5,000
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(b)
(d)
elements are used at the first step and the number of elements is auto-
matically increased to 10,000 elements in sensitive zones where high
plastic shearing strain occurs. The numerical process using adaptive
FELA has been applied to a number of geotechnical stability problems
in recent years (Shiau et al. 2016; Shiau and Al-Asadi 2020a, b).
Typical adaptive meshes used in the analyses can be seen in the
later section discussing failure mechanism, which also shows highly
accurate solutions can always be obtained using the above settings.
Model Validation
Although both LB and UB provide a built-in validation of the sol-
ution accuracy, it is always a good step to compare numerical re-
sults with other published solutions. The first comparison
example is for the case of a circular footing on isotropic and non-
homogeneous clay, where (ri/ro = 0), (re = 1), and (ρro/suTC0 = 1,
2.5, 5, and 15). Table 1 compares our results (LB, UB, and Avg)
with those published by Tani and Craig (1995) (LB method), Hu
et al. (1999) (UB method), Houlsby and Martin (2003) (Method
of Characteristics), and Lee et al. (2016a) [finite-element method
(FEM)]. In general, the results agree well, though our study has sig-
nificantly improved the solutions. The present results predict lower
values of bearing capacity that are considered as less conservative
than those derived by the published solutions.
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(a)
(b)
(c)
Fig. 8. Effect of ri/ro on final adaptive meshes of ring footings (re = 0.7
and ρro/suTC0 = 1): (a) ri/ro = 0; (b) ri/ro = 0.33; and (c) ri/ro = 0.75.
Fig. 4 presents a second example for comparison. Selected val-
ues of the Avg solutions from the present study and the FEM sol-
utions from Lee et al. (2016a) are compared for (re = 1), (ri/ro = 0,
0.25, 0.5, and 0.75), and (ρro/suTC0 = 0, 1, 2.5, 5, and 15). Overall,
it is positive to see that the solutions provided by Lee et al. (2016a)
are in good agreement with our Avg solutions for all considered
values of ri/ro and ρro/suTC0.
Results and Discussion
The complete average bound solutions of the bearing capacity fac-
tor of ring foundations on anisotropic and nonhomogeneous clays
are presented in Figs. 5–7. These figures show the effects of ri/ro,
ρro/suTC0, and re, respectively.
Figs. 5(a–f) show the relationship between the bearing capacity
factor N and the ratio of ri/ro for various values of re (0.5–1.0) and
ρro/suTC0 (0–15). A nonlinear relationship can be observed for all
values of re, where an increase in ri/ro results in a decrease in N.
An increase in ri/ro means a decrease of the ring area, and therefore
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(a)
(b)
(c)
Fig. 9. Effect of ri/ro on incremental shear strain contours of ring
footings (re = 0.7 and ρro/suTC0 = 1): (a) ri/ro = 0; (b) ri/ro = 0.33; and
(c) ri/ro = 0.75.
a decrease in the bearing capacity factor N. The nonlinear relationship
between the bearing capacity factor N and the parameter ρro/suTC0 is
presented in Figs. 6(a–d) for (ri/ro = 0–0.75). The larger the ρro/suTC0
value, the greater the N value. This is because an increase in the linear
strength gradient (ρ) yields an increase in the bearing capacity of
foundations. This observation is for all values of re and ri/ro.
On the other note, Figs. 7(a–d) shows the relationship between N
and re. This is for (ρro/suTC0 = 0, 1, 10, and 15) and (ri/ro = 0–0.75).
Numerical results show that an increase in re results in an increase in
N. Clearly, an increase in re meaning a decrease of the undrained
shear strength from triaxial compression test (suTE), which results
in a weaker strength of soil and therefore less bearing capacity is
expected.
The failure mechanisms after five adaptive steps of meshing are
shown in Figs. 8(a–c) for the three ratios (ri/ro = 0, 0.33, and 0.75),
respectively. The incremental shear strain contours for the same
cases are also shown in Figs. 9(a–c). These plots are based on
the selected values of (ρro/suTC0 = 1, re = 0.7). It is interesting to
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(a) (a)

(b) (b)

Fig. 11. Effect of re on incremental shear strain contours of ring foot-

ings (ri/ro = 0.25 and ρro/suTC0 = 0): (a) re = 0.5; and (b) re = 1.

(c)
Fig. 10. Effect of ρro/suTC0 on incremental shear strain contours of ring
footings (re = 0.8 and ri/ro = 0.5): (a) ρro/suTC0 = 0; (b) ρro/suTC0 = 2;
and (c) ρro/suTC0 = 15.
see the refined mesh that contains a large number of elements in
the shear failure zones. As the value of ri/ro increases, the size
of the failure zone decreases in both horizontal and vertical direc-
tions. This can be understood through the observation of the inter-
ference between the ring footing and the line of axial symmetry.
The interference vanishes in the case of (ri/ro = 0.75), indicating
an independent bearing capacity failure mechanism. The vertical
expansions of the slip-lines for the ring footing with different val-
ues of (ri/ro = 0, 0.33, and 0.75) are approximately (0.75ro, 0.35ro,
and 0.2ro), respectively.
The effect of the strength gradient ratio ρro/suTC0 on the failure
mechanisms is illustrated in Fig. 10 for (re = 0.8, and ri/ro = 0.5). It
is shown that an increase in ρro/suTC0 results in a decrease in the
size of the shear failure zones. The vertical expansions of the
slip-lines for the ring footing with different values of ρro/suTC0 =
0, 2, and 15 are approximately 0.35ro, 0.2ro, and 0.15ro, respec-
tively. Fig. 11 presents the influence of re on the overall failure
mechanism. Two re values are selected for the comparison i.e.,
(re = 0.5, highly anisotropic soil) and (re = 1, isotropic soil). The se-
lected plots are for the case of (ri/ro = 0.25) and (ρro/suTC0 = 0). One
interesting finding is that the area of the failure zone in the highly
anisotropic soil (re = 0.5) is slightly larger than that in the isotropic
soil (re = 1). A possible explanation for this might be due to the fact
that suTE < suTC when re is less than one, thus resulting in lower
stability and larger failure zone. Overall, the influence of re on
the slip-line pattern is insignificant.
Design Equation
Using a trial-and-error method of curve fitting and nonlinear regres-
sion with multiple variables to the Avg bound solutions, a new de-
sign equation for predicting the bearing capacity factor of ring
footings on anisotropic and nonhomogeneous clay with linearly in-
creasing strength is expressed in the following equation:

 
 


N ri ρro 2 ri ρro
= 1 + a1 + a2 + a3 + a4
N0 ro suTC0 ro suTC0


ri
+ a5 + a6 (7)
ro
where a1–a6 = constant coefficients; and N0 = bearing capacity fac-
tor of ring footing for the cases of (ρro/suTC0 = 0) and (ri/ro = 0).
The least-square method (Sauer 2014) is employed to determine
the optimal values of the coefficients a1–a6. These values can be
found in Table 2.
A comparison of the N/N0 values between the FELA solutions
(Avg) and the proposed design equation is shown in Figs. 12(a–f)
for different values of (re = 0.5, 0.6, 0.7, 0.8, 0.9, and 1). The co-
efficients of determination (R 2) are approximately 95.87%–
99.36%, indicating the high accuracy of the proposed equation.

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 Table 2. Constant coefficients for the proposed design equation
re

Constant coefficients 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0

N0 4.7855 5.1030 5.3465 5.5170 5.6720 5.8005
a1 −0.00273 −0.00290 −0.00295 −0.00323 −0.00340 −0.00361
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a2 0.00251 0.00267 0.00255 0.00278 0.00289 0.00309

a3 0.14248 0.14861 0.15366 0.16250 0.16941 0.17641
a4 −0.13605 −0.13922 −0.13998 −0.14674 −0.15212 −0.15825
a5 0.00774 0.02457 0.03340 0.04007 0.04756 0.05610
a6 −0.43278 −0.38402 −0.33103 −0.27628 −0.23295 −0.19607
R2 95.87% 97.11% 98.10% 98.77% 99.14% 99.36%

(a) (b)

(c) (d)

(e) (f )

Fig. 12. Comparison of N/N0 values between the Avg bound solutions from FELA and the proposed design equation: (a) re = 0.5; (b) re = 0.6; (c) re =
0.7; (d) re = 0.8; (e) re = 0.9; and (f) re = 1.

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 Conclusions
The present study was designed to determine the bearing capacity
factor N of ring footings on anisotropic and nonhomogeneous clays
using advanced finite-element limit analysis with upper and lower
bound theorems and AUS failure criterion. The following conclu-
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sions can be drawn from the present study.
1. The study has shown that the bearing capacity factors are depen-
dent on the strength gradient ratio ρro/suTC0, the radius ratio
ri/ro, and the anisotropic strength ratio re.
2. An increase in ρro/suTC0 or re results in an increase in N whereas
a decrease in ri/ro results in an increase in N.
3. The collapse mechanisms study has identified that the size of the
shear failure zone decreases as the value of ρro/suTC0 or ri/ro in-
creases. The effect of re on the size of the shear failure zone is
insignificant.
4. A new design equation is proposed based on the average bound
solutions. The proposed design equation is highly accurate and
can be used to evaluate the bearing capacity of ring footing on
anisotropic and nonhomogeneous clays.
5. A future study involved probabilistic analysis of random fields
would be beneficial to improve the confidence in design.
Data Availability Statement
All data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are
available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Notation
The following symbols are used in this paper:
a1–a6 = constant coefficients;
N = bearing capacity factor;
N0 = bearing capacity factor of ring footing for the cases of
(ρro/suTC0 = 0) and (ri/ro = 0);
q = vertical uniform pressure;
Q = vertical force;
re = anisotropic strength ratio with respect to suTE;
ri = internal radius;
ro = external radius;
rs = anisotropic strength ratio with respect to suDSS;
R 2 = coefficients of determination;
ρ = linear strength gradient;
suTC = anisotropic undrained shear strengths from the triaxial
compression test;
suTE = anisotropic undrained shear strengths from the triaxial
extension test;
suDSS = anisotropic undrained shear strengths from the direct
simple shear test; and
z = depth measured from the ground surface.
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