College of Engineering and Technology

Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering

TR 334: FOUNDATION ENGINEERING I

TUTORIAL QUESTION I
1. A water tank, 15 m in diameter and 10 m high, is proposed for a site where there is an existing
pipeline (2 m in diameter, located at 7 m, to its base, from the ground level and laterally at 8
m from the centre of the tank). Plot the distribution of vertical and lateral stress increases
imposed by the water tank on the pipeline along one-half the circumference nearest to the tank.
The empty tank’s weight (deal load) is 300 kN. Assume the water tank is filled to its capacity
and embedded by 1 m from the ground surface.

2. As shown in Fig. 1, three foundations are located next to each other. Determine the stress
increases at A, B, and C at a depth of 2 m below the ground surface.

Fig. 1 Foundations located next to each other.

3. A soil profile consists of 10-m-thick fi ne sand of effective size 0.15 mm above a very thick
layer of clay. Groundwater level is at 3 m below the ground surface.
(a) Determine the height of capillary rise, assuming that the equivalent capillary tube diameter
is 10% of the effective size and the sand surface is similar to smooth glass.
(b) Plot the distribution of vertical effective stress and porewater pressure with depth if the
void ratio of the sand is 0.6 and the degree of saturation is 90%.
Neglect pore air pressure.

4. A soil profile consists of a clay layer underlain by a sand layer, as shown in Figure 2. If a tube
is inserted into the bottom sand layer and the water level rises to 1 m above the ground surface,
determine the vertical effective stresses and porewater pressures at A, B, and C. If Ko is 0.5,
determine the lateral effective and lateral total stresses at A, B, and C. What is the value of the
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Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
porewater pressure at A to cause the vertical effective stress there to be zero?

Fig. 2 A soil profile

5. A soil profile consists of 10-m-thick fi ne sand of effective size 0.15 mm above a very thick
layer of clay. Groundwater level is at 3 m below the ground surface.
(a) Determine the height of capillary rise, assuming that the equivalent capillary tube diameter
is 10% of the effective size and the sand surface is similar to smooth glass.
(b) Plot the distribution of vertical effective stress and porewater pressure with depth if the
void ratio of the sand is 0.6 and the degree of saturation is 90%.
Neglect pore air pressure.

6. A strip footing is to be placed in a very loose dry sandy stratum (φ' = 28o, γ = 16kN/m3).
Estimate the maximum safe bearing pressure F = 3 for strip footings (a) 0.5m wide (b) 1m
wide each placed (i) at the surface and (ii) 1m below the surface.
7. For the 1 m wide footing at 1m below the surface in question 1, what is the safe bearing
pressure if the water table is (a) at foundation level and (b) at the soil surface ? Take the
saturated unit weight of the sand to be 20 kN/m3.
8. A flexible square footing of width 2 m is placed on the surface of a 3m thick layer of firm clay
which rests on rock. The footing carries a load of 600 kN. The drained one-dimensional
modulus for the soil is given by the equation Eo' = 5 + 10z MPa, and the drained Poisson ratio
 ' = 0.2. Divide the soil into 3 equal layers and calculate the stress under the centre of the
footing at the centre of each layer. Hence use the one-dimensional method to estimate the total
central settlement of the foundation.
9. A flexible square footing of side 2 m is to carry a load of 800 kN at the surface of the deep
layer on the stiff clay, with shear modulus G = 3.5 + 7z MPa, where z is the depth below the
clay surface. The effective Poisson’s of clay is 0.15 (Total settlement).
(i) Estimate the depth of influence: that is the depth beneath the footing at which the vertical
stress has reduced to 20% of the applied surcharge pressure
(ii) By splitting the soil into two equal layers as far as the depth of influence, estimate the
total settlement of the centre of the footing using one-dimensional method.
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Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
(iii)Treating the soil as having constant shear modulus equal to the value at the bottom of the
top layer, use the exact solution for corner settlement of the flexible square footing on an
isotropic, homogeneous, linear elastic half space to estimate the immediate central
settlement, total central settlement, average immediate and average total settlements.
(iv) If bedrock exists 5 m below the surface, assuming the soil to have the same constant
modulus as in (iii), calculate the average immediate settlement by using the Christian and
Carrier (1978) method.

10. A flexible square pad footing of side 2m is to exert a total foundation pressure of 200 kPa at
2m depth in a 12m thick bed of firm clay of shear modulus 7 MPa. Use the charts by Christian
and Carrier to calculate the average immediate settlement of the footing. Estimate the
immediate central settlement of the footing.
5. (a) A column of a warehouse shed is to be founded on a rectangular footing which, because
of the presence of services and nearby foundations must be 1.5m x 3m. The foundation is
to be built on stiff clay of saturated unit weight 20 kN/m3, undrained strength 120 kPa, and
ultimate friction angle 22o. The footing is to be placed at a certain depth and backfilled
with compacted clay of saturated unit weight 20 kN/m3 to ground level, and the column is
to carry a working load of 1.5 MN. Using Skempton's chart, find the depth at which the
foundation should be placed in order to have a short-term safety factor against failure of at
least 2.5?
(b) In practice, poor setting out leads to the column load acting 200mm off the footing
centreline. Estimate the factor of safety for this case. (Hint: calculate the effective width
of the footing and use B' to calculate the effective foundation pressure q, Nc for a strip
footing using Skempton's chart, and the shape factor).
(c) Calculate the safety factor in the long term for the eccentric loading case in (b) if the water
table is 1m below ground level, and the soil above foundation level is treated as surcharge
with negligible strength.

11. A 2 m square footing is founded at a depth of 1m in a course nc sand stratum of considerable

thickness (γ = 18kN/m3,γ΄ = 10kN/m3) where the water table is at a depth of 2 m. Standard
Penetration Tests gave the following results:
Depth/m 0.7 1.4 2.1 2.8 3.5 4.2 4.9 5.6
N 5 6 7 9 11 12 16 25

If the applied pressure is 100kPa, what immediate settlement is forecast by the Burland and
Burbage method?

12. A footing 1.5 m square imposes a gross foundation pressure of 200kPa at a depth of 1m in a
normally consolidated fine sand (γ = 17kN/m3). The water table is 5m below the ground
surface. The variation of cone resistance with depth is given in Fig. 3. Estimate the immediate
settlement using the methods of (a) Meyerhof (b) Schmertmann (1978).
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Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering

Fig. 3
13. What will be the factors of safety with respect to average shearing strength, cohesion and
internal friction of a soil, for which the shear strength parameters obtained from the laboratory
tests are: 𝑐 ′ = 32 kN/m2 , 𝜙 ′ = 18𝑜 ; the expected parameters of mobilized shearing resistance
are 𝑐𝑑′ = 21 kN/m2 and 𝜙𝑑′ = 13𝑜 and the average effective pressure on the failure plane is 100
kN/m2 . For the same value of mobilized shearing resistance determine the following:
(i) Factor of safety with respect to height;
(ii) Factor of safety with respect to friction when that with respect to cohesion is unity;
(iii)Factor of safety with respect to strength.

14. Auniform stress of 200 kPa is applied over a square area ABCD (Fig.3) of the surface of a
deep layer of clay which can be taken to have a shear modulus of 10 MPa. Calculate the
immediate settlement at points R and P.
4m
A B

4m
R

D C
1m
P Fig.3
1m

15. The soil profile at the construction site consists of dense sand up to 2 m depth, normally loaded
soft clay from 2 to 6 m depth and stiff impervious rock below 6 m depth. The ground water
table is at 0.4 m depth below the ground level. The sand has a density of 18.5 kN/m3 above
water table and 19 kN/m3 below it. For the clay, natural water content is 50%, liquid limit is
65% and grey specific gravity is 2.65. Assuming that a uniformly distributed surface load of
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Department of Transportation and Geotechnical Engineering
40 kN/m2 applied on an extensive area of the site.
(i) Sketch the soil profile and include all details
(ii) Calculate the probable ultimate settlement.