11.
FOUNDATIONS ON ROCK
K. Y. La
A. M. Hefny
11.1 Introduction
This chapter covers two main topics. The first
deals with the design principles for founda-
tions on rock specially those for tall buildings
(Section 11.2): both shallow footings and
piles socketed in rocks are addressed. The
second topic deals with the safety assessment
of concrete dams on rock foundations (Sec-
tion 11.3).
11.2 Foundations for
Tall BUildings
11.2.1 DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS
11.2.1.1 Bearing Capacity
The loads associated with tall buildings are
large and may result in high contact pressures
being applied to the rock mass. Although set-
tlement criteria often control the design of
foundations supported by rock, the bearing
capacity of the rock mass must be calculated
to assess the stability.
The appropriate method for assessing the
bearing capacity of foundation at a site de-
pends entirely on the geological condition.
For sound intact rock mass, the strength of
the rock is so high that bearing capacity is
rarely an issue. It should be noted that for
strong sound rock, the stresses in the struc-
tural section of the foundation may control
the deSign. There are several potential modes
of failure (Jurgenson 1934; Sowers 1979) for
a layered and jointed rock mass, as shown in
R. K. Rowe (ed.), Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering Handbook
© Kluwer Academic Publishers 2001
Table 11.1. Equations for calculating the ulti-
mate bearing capacity for each mode are also
provided in Table 11.1 in conjunction with
Table 11.2.
11.2.1.2 Allowable Bearing Pressure
The allowable bearing pressure may be de-
fined as the maximum bearing stress to be ap-
plied to the rock mass to provide an adequate
factor of safety against bearing capacity fail-
ure and to ensure that settlement is within
tolerable limits. The allowable bearing pres-
sure for foundations supported on rocks can
be obtained from: 1. codes, 2. semi-empirical
methods, 3. bearing capacity theories, and
4. in situ tests.
1. Codes. For preliminary design pur-
poses, it is sometimes useful to estimate the
allowable bearing pressure, which will de-
pend on the type and condition of rock, based
on presumed values given in city and national
building codes. While the city codes are de-
rived from local experience and geology, the
national codes are often more general. These
presumed values are usually conservative;
however, the engineer should ensure that
they are applicable to the particular condi-
tions relevant to the site under considera-
tion.
Table 11.3 shows presumed allowable
bearing pressure for different rock types and
conditions as given by the CGS (1992).
TABLE 11.1. Bearing capacity failure modes in layered and jointed rock mass

Bearing capacity failure mode

Illustration Description Mode Ultimate bearing capacity (quIt)
B
Clay seam sandwiched Squeezing out of weak Use the Jurgenson solution

Clay seam
:J: Ia
Rigid
between two rigid
layers
clay seam (1934)
Rigid

where s u = the undrained shear

strength for the clay, B = the
foundation width, and a = the
thickness of the clay seam
Thick rigid layer over- Flexure failure Minimum quit = twice the tensile
Rigi~-"-~---"
lying weak com- strength of the upper rock layer
- .... -J \._ .... -
pressible layer
Weak
Thin rigid layer overly- Punching failure Mininum quIt = tensile strength of
Rigid .~.
Weak , ______ l
ing weak compress-
ible layer
the upper rock layer

Open joints with Uniaxial compression quIt = uniaxial compressive

~
s<B of the "rock col- strength of the upper rock layer
umns"

Closed joints with General wedge shear Use the Bell solution (e.g. Kul-

~
s<B failure hawy & Goodman 1987)
_ By
quit - eN c + -Ny + yDfNq
2
where B = base width; Df = foun-
dation depth below rock sur-
face; y = unit weight of rock;
Nc = 2N~/2(NB + 1);
Ny = N~/2(N~ + 1);
N q = N~; N$ = tan2 [45° + (<1>/2)];
e and <1> = shear strength parame-
ters of rock mass at operative
stress level. For circular, square
or rectangular footing use cor-
rection factors for N c and Ny
given in Table 11.2

TABLE 11.2. Correction factors for Nc and Ny (modified from Sowers 1979)

Foundation shape" Correction factor for Nc Correction factor for Ny

Circular 1.20 0.70
Square 1.25 0.85
Rectangular
LIB = 2 1.12 0.90
LIB = 5 1.05 0.95
'L = foundation length; B = foundation width.