EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL AND CIVIL ENGINEERING

https://doi.org/10.1080/19648189.2020.1805643

Bearing capacity of ring footings placed on dense sand

underlain by a loose sand layer
Vishwas N. Khatria , Jyant Kumarb and Pragyan Paramita Dasa
a
Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (I.S.M.), Dhanbad, India; bCivil Engineering
Department, Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, India

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

The ultimate bearing capacity of a ring footing on loose sand deposit, with Received 4 November 2019
an inclusion of a dense sand layer on its top, has been determined numer- Accepted 29 July 2020
ically in a bound form by following the finite element limit analysis (FELA).
KEYWORDS
The friction angles /1 and /2 were varied from 40
to 46
and 30
to 36

Bearing capacity; finite
for the top dense sand and the bottom loose sand respectively. The Mohr- elements; failure; limit
Coulomb’s yield criterion has been assumed to be applicable. The bearing analysis; ring footings;
capacity has been found to increase quite extensively with an increase in layered sand
the thickness ðHÞ of the dense sand layer thickness up to a certain optimal
thickness ðHopt Þ before attaining a constant value. The magnitude of
Hopt =ðro  ri Þ has been found to lie generally between 1.5 and 4.7, and the
corresponding maximum value of the bearing capacity with an inclusion of
the dense sand layer varies in a wide range of 2.32–82.45 times the corre-
sponding value for an unimproved loose sand deposit; the parameters ri
and ro refer to the inner and outer radii of the ring, respectively. Similar to
a ring footing on homogeneous sand deposit, the bearing capacity for dif-
ferent chosen combinations of internal friction angles of the two sand
layers, tends to become maximum generally for a value of ri =ro closer to
0.25. For the validation, the results for a ring footing on two-layered sand
deposit were also determined by using the displacements based elastoplas-
tic finite element (EP-FE) method. The results from the FELA were found to
compare well with (i) the obtained solutions based on the EP-FE method,
and (ii) the published results by using experiments and the method of
stress characteristics.

1. Introduction
Ring footings are often provided for different structures such as cooling towers, storage tanks, radar sta-
tions, transmission towers, chimneys, and silos. As compared to solid circular footings, only limited stud-
ies seem to have been reported in the literature to predict the bearing capacity and settlements of ring
footings. These available studies mostly deal with the cases when the ring footing is placed over a single
layer of homogeneous soil stratum. Experimental investigations have been reported in the literature to
predict the bearing capacity and settlement of ring footings (Al-Sanad et al., 1993; Boushehrian & Hataf,
2003; El Sawwaf & Nazir, 2012; Hataf & Razavi, 2003; Naderi & Hataf, 2014; Ohri et al., 1997; Saha, 1978;
Saran et al., 2003; Sharma & Kumar, 2017). Saha (1978) performed small scale laboratory model tests to
examine the load-settlement response of ring footings over homogenous sand mass. Al-Sanad et al.
(1993) conducted a series of field tests to investigate the response of ring footing over dense cemented
sand. Ohri et al. (1997) experimentally studied the behavior of a ring footing on dune sand overlying

CONTACT Pragyan Paramita Das pragyandas1403@gmail.com

ß 2020 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
2 V. N. KHATRI ET AL.

Figure 1. (a) Problem domain and boundary conditions for a rough rigid ring footing; (b) the element and stress variables for the
lower bound FELA; and (c) the element and velocity variables for the upper bound FELA.

dense sand. By performing small-scale model tests, Boushehrian and Hataf (2003) examined the load-
deformation response of ring footings over reinforced sand. Saran et al. (2003) determined the bearing
capacity of eccentrically, obliquely loaded ring footings on the sand by conducting a series of small-scale
model tests. Using small-scale model tests, El Sawwaf and Nazir (2012) studied the behavior of eccentric-
ally loaded ring footings on reinforced layered soil. Recently, Sharma and Kumar (2017) conducted experi-
ments to examine the influence of relative density on the performance of a ring footing on two-layered
fiber-reinforced soil foundations. Apart from these different experimental investigations, a few numerical
analyses have also been performed to compute the ultimate bearing capacity and the settlements of ring
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL AND CIVIL ENGINEERING 3

Table 1. The unit weights and the associated friction angle for sand used in the analysis: following Bowles (1977).
Unit weight
(c)
kN/m3 13.5 14.5 15.0 16.0 16.5 17.5 18.0 19.0 20.0
Friction angle 30 32 34 36 38 40 42 44 46
(/)
Degrees

footings (Benmebarek et al., 2012; Boushehrian & Hataf, 2003; Bowles, 1977; Choobbasti et al., 2010;
Hosseininia, 2015; Karaulov, 2005, 2006; Keshavarz & Kumar, 2017; Kumar & Chakraborty, 2015; Kumar &
Ghosh, 2005; Naderi & Hataf, 2014; Tassoulas & Kausel, 1984; Zhao & Wang, 2008). Boushehrian and Hataf
(2003) used the elastoplastic finite element (EP-FE) method to evaluate the bearing capacity and settle-
ment for a ring footing on the sand. By following the method of stress characteristics, Kumar and Ghosh
(2005) and Keshavarz and Kumar (2017) computed the bearing capacity factor Nc for both smooth and
rough ring footings on sand. In the analysis of Kumar and Ghosh (2005), the singularity with reference to
the stresses was considered only at the outer edge of the ring. On the other hand, in the recent analysis
of Keshavarz and Kumar (2017), which is much more rigorous, the stress singularities were incorporated
both along the inner and outer edges of the ring footing. Zhao and Wang (2008), Benmebarek et al.
(2012), and Hosseininia (2015) used the commercially available finite difference code FLAC to compute
the bearing capacity of the ring footings on sand. Kumar and Chakraborty (2015) employed the lower
and upper bound limit analysis in conjunction with finite elements and linear optimization for determin-
ing the bearing capacity of the ring footings on sand. It should be mentioned that all these numerical
studies are meant for a ring footing placed over a single layer of homogenous soil medium.
In case if the footing has to be placed over a loose sand deposit, in many of the field situations, it
becomes essential to improve the stiffness of the ground. One of the simplest ground improvement tech-
niques in such a case is to densify the upper region of soil strata (Farah, 2004; Hanna, 1981, 1982; Khatri
et al., 2017; Meyerhof & Hanna, 1978). The present study deals with a case where the ring footing is
placed over loose sand strata with densification of the thin upper region. By employing the axisymmetric
finite element limit analysis (FELA), the bearing capacity of ring footings placed over a thin layer of the
dense sand stratum, which overlies loose sand deposits, has been computed in a bound form. The ana-
lysis has been carried out by varying the thickness of the dense sand layer, unit weights, and friction
angles of both the layers. For the sake of comparisons, the solutions have also been obtained by the dis-
placements based elastoplastic finite element (EP-FE) method. The results obtained from the analysis
were also compared with the data available in the literature for both solid circular and ring footings.

2. Problem definition
A rigid, rough ring footing, with internal and external radii ri and ro , respectively, is placed over a loose
sand deposit. The ground is improved with an inclusion of a dense sand layer of thickness H, as shown
in Figure 1. In this figure, the line EF indicates the interface between the dense sand underlain by loose
sand. The sand is assumed to be perfectly plastic, obeys an associated flow rule and the Mohr-Coulomb
yield criterion. It is intended to determine the ultimate load ðQu Þ for a ring footing with (i) different val-
ues of unit weight c1 and c2 , friction angles, /1 and /2 , of the upper and lower layers, respectively, and
(ii) different values of the H: The value of ri =ro was varied between 0 and 0.9; note that the value of
ri =ro ¼ 0 corresponds to a solid circular footing. The relationship between unit weight, c, and internal
friction angle / for sandy soils, as reported by Bowles (1977), was chosen to do the analysis; the values
of c and corresponding / are indicated in Table 1.

3. Problem domain and mesh pattern

The problem domain selected (ABCD) for doing the analysis is shown in Figure 1; here, l and d denote its
length and depth, respectively. The variables r and z depict the radial and vertical coordinates. The soil-
footing interface is assumed to be perfectly rough. For doing the lower bound analysis, the friction angle
of the soil-footing interface was kept equal to the angle of internal friction of the upper sand
4 V. N. KHATRI ET AL.

H
Figure 2. The chosen mesh for a ring footing with u1 ¼ 40o , u2 ¼ 30o and ri =ro ¼ 0.5 with the value of ðro r iÞ
equal to (a) 0.5;
(b) 1.0; and (c) 2.0.
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL AND CIVIL ENGINEERING 5

layer ðd ¼ /1 Þ: On the other hand, for doing the upper bound analysis, no relative movement (velocity)
was permitted between the footing and underlying soil mass. The governing stress and velocity bound-
ary conditions are illustrated in Figure 1. For performing the lower bound analysis, the shear stress ðsrz Þ
becomes zero along with the line of an axial symmetry (AB). The yield constraints jsrz j  ðrn tan/Þ were
imposed along the (i) footing-soil interface, (ii) bottom horizontal boundary (BC), and (iii) the right vertical
boundary (CD); the normal tensile stress was taken as positive. For conducting the upper bound analysis,
(i) the horizontal velocities ðuÞ along the footing-soil interface and the axis of symmetry, and (ii) u, v, the
horizontal and the vertical velocities along the chosen bottom horizontal boundary (BC) and the right
vertical boundary (CD) were kept equal to zero. Uniform vertical downward velocities were imposed
along the rigid footing base.
The size of the domain was arrived by performing several trials such that the yielded zones obtained
from both the lower and upper bound analysis were contained well within the chosen problem domain.
Also, the magnitude of the collapse load remains almost unaltered with the change in the size of the
domain. It was observed that the size of the domain with l ¼ 13ro and d ¼ 10ro was generally found to
be sufficient to satisfy these requirements. The chosen domain was discretized into several triangular ele-
ments. The inner and the outer edges of the ring form the points of the singularity, and hence, the sizes
of the elements are gradually reduced approaching towards the inner and outer boundaries of the ring.
The mesh patterns for the footing with ri =ro ¼ 0:5 on dense sand overlying loose sand with /1 ¼ 40o
and /2 ¼ 30o for three different values of H=ðro  ri Þ, namely, 0.5, 1, and 2, are shown in Figure 2. It
should be noted that the meshes shown in Figure 2 were updated continuously based on the observed
maximum shear strain rate in the domain. Therefore, the region in the mesh with the finer elements
indirectly represents a potential yield zone. From Figure 2(a, b), it can be noticed that for ðroHri Þ ¼ 0:5 and
1, the yield zones are extended in both the layers. However, for ðroHri Þ ¼ 2:0, the yield zone is confined
only in the upper (dense sand) layer (Figure 2(c)).

4. Methodology
The analysis for performing the finite element limit analysis was based on (i) the lower bound formula-
tion of Makrodimopoulos and Martin (2006), and (ii) the upper bound formulation of Makrodimopoulos
and Martin (2006) and Krabbenhøft et al. (2007, 2008), respectively. In their analysis, the second-order
cone programming (SOCP) has been used to determine the stress field in the lower and upper bound
formulations along with the usage of the Mohr-Coulomb’s yield criterion. Note that due to the usage of
the SOCP, the smoothening of Mohr-Coulomb’s yield criterion (Lyamin & Sloan, 2002a, 2002b), to account
for the numerical difficulties associated with the traditional non-linear optimization is not required.
For the lower bound analysis, three noded triangular elements with nodal stresses rr , rz , rh , and srz
were used (refer Figure 1(a)) as the basic unknown variables. Statically admissible stress discontinuities
were introduced along the interfaces of all the elements; the normal and shear stresses remain continu-
ous across any discontinuity. The satisfactions of equilibrium equation, stress boundary condition, and
the Mohr-Coulomb’s yield criterion lead to the lower bound formulation, and the magnitude of the col-
lapse load (the objective function) is maximized. It should be mentioned that the enforcement of the
Mohr-Coulomb failure inequality constraint leads to three-second order conic constraints in contrast to
one for any plane strain problem. These three inequality constraints (Pastor & Turgeman, 1982) are given
herein:
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
2 4c cos / 1 sin /
ðrr rz Þ2 þ ð2srz Þ  þ ðrr þ rz Þ  2rh (1a)
1 þ sin / 1 þ sin /
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
2 4c cos / 1 þ sin /
ðrr rz Þ2 þ ð2srz Þ   ðrr þ rz Þ þ 2rh (1b)
1  sin / 1  sin /
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
2
ðrr rz Þ2 þ ð2srz Þ  2c cos / þ ðrr þ rz Þ sin / (1c)

The value of cohesion (c) becomes equal to zero in the case of sand. The details of the analysis can be
easily obtained from (Krabbenhøft et al., 2007, 2008; Makrodimopoulos & Martin, 2006). In general, the
lower bound formulation can be expressed mathematically as
6 V. N. KHATRI ET AL.

Table 2. A comparison of the Nc values using different theories for a ring footing placed over homogeneous sand.
Nc
Kumar and Chakraborty (2015):
/ The present FELA using linear optimization Keshavarz and Kumar (2017):
Degrees ri =ro analysis: FELA and assumption of rh Method of stress characteristics
30 Lower bound Upper bound Lower bound Upper bound
0 15.27 15.79 15.52 18.06 15.54
0.25 15.12 15.57 14.17 16.47 15.32
0.5 13.33 14.00 13.01 15.17 13.39
0.75 13.63 14.33 13.81 15.93 13.50
0.90 13.58 14.32 13.89 16.18 14.23
35 0 40.86 42.56 41.45 50.72 42.15
0.25 43.87 47.51 43.46 53.43 47.11
0.5 35.22 37.86 32.69 40.36 37.31
0.75 32.96 35.20 28.35 34.86 33.87
0.90 31.88 34.24 29.40 35.52 34.24
40 0 116.87 125.37 120.06 152.09 124.10
0.25 143.49 164.13 149.21 190.55 184.4
0.5 105.36 118.05 87.95 113.15 111.38
0.75 86.84 95.87 60.83 77.02 93.74
0.90 80.67 88.25 70.66 90.31 87.58
45 0 378.43 423.00 383.41 548.33 –
0.25 571.05 651.26 639.01 922.29 –
0.5 375.32 449.00 238.2 334.47 –
0.75 258.36 301.70 156.91 224.40 –
0.90 224.82 257.70 172.29 235.27 –
 
min dT r j Ar ¼ b, r 2 K (2)
where r 2 R , d 2 R , b 2 R , A 2 R
T n n m
and K ¼ convex cone.
mn

For performing the upper bound analysis, six noded linear strain triangular elements were used with
horizontal and vertical velocities, u and v, were kept as the basic unknown variables at each node
(Figure 1(b)). Kinematically admissible velocity discontinuities were imposed along with all the elements’
interfaces. The enforcement of the associated flow rule along with the compatibility requirement (the
relationship between strain rate and velocities) and the velocity boundary conditions provided the upper
bound formulation wherein the total power dissipation in the domain is minimized.
The upper bound value of the collapse load can be determined by solving the following optimization
problem:
Minimize power Dp ðe_ ðuÞ, DuÞ  P0 ðuÞ (3a)
Subjected to u ¼ u0 on Cu (3b)
Here (i) u and e_ refer to velocity and strain rate vectors, (ii) Cu implies the boundary surface along which
the specified velocities (u0 ) are imposed, (iii) Du refer to the velocity jump across the velocity discontinu-
ity along the elements’ interfaces, and (iv) the function P0 ðuÞ implies the rate of work done by known
body forces (soil unit weight for the present problem).
The compatibility relationship between strain rates and velocities:
e_ ðuÞ ¼ Bu in X (4a)
The application of the associated flow rule within the domain:
e_ ðuÞ 2 Kc in X (4b)
The application of the associated flow rule along velocities discontinuities:
Du 2 Kd in Cd (4c)
The constraints obtained by scaling unknown tractions along the footing base to be unity:
Pb ðuÞ ¼ 1 (4d)
where (i) Kc and Kd form the spaces such that the associated flow rule for strain rate and the velocity dis-
continuities are imposed; and (ii) B implies the standard linear differential compatibility operator. The papers
of Makrodimopoulos and Martin (2007) and Mohapatra and Kumar (2018) can be referred on the upper
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL AND CIVIL ENGINEERING 7

Table 3. A comparison of the obtained Nc values with the experimental data of Saha (1978) for a ring footing placed over
homogeneous sand.
Nc
Present analysis: FELA
/ Lower bound Upper bound
Degrees ri =ro w ¼ / (w 6¼ /) w ¼ / (w 6¼ /) Saha (1978): Experimental data
31.0 0.2 18.74(14.92) 20.05(16.06) 15.32
0.4 16.21(13.10) 17.24(13.89) 16.71
0.6 15.34(12.58) 16.25(13.31) 21.07
35.5 0.2 50.66(33.72) 55.37(37.87) 50.37
0.4 41.33(29.05) 44.87(31.28) 45.38
0.6 36.31(26.12) 39.10(28.10) 50.29
38.7 0.2 108.03(64.08) 121.06(72.0) 74.22
0.4 84.81(52.35) 94.73(57.39) 79.78
0.6 70.09(45.14) 77.15(48.90) 73.46
40.5 0.2 171.92(94.37) 201.60(105.34) 98.94
0.4 131.32(75.08) 150.94(82.92) 109.10
0.6 105.11(62.43) 117.77(68.26) 101.69

bound FELA formulation, which can be solved while using the semidefinite programming (SDP) technique. In
the SDP, one needs to minimize a linear objective function which is subjected to constraints in the form of
an affine combination of symmetric positive semidefinite matrices. Such constraints are non-linear and non-
smooth but remain convex so that the SDP formulation remains a convex optimization problem.
The upper and lower bounds on the bearing capacity were obtained for different combinations of the
friction angles, /1 and /2 , of the upper and lower sand layers, respectively, with changes in the thickness
(H) of the top layer. The computations were carried out by employing the finite element limit analysis
software Optum G2 (2017). The results obtained were compared with the solutions available from the lit-
erature wherever applicable.

5. Results and comparison

After determining the magnitude of the collapse load (Qu ), the average ultimate bearing pressure (qu ) is
defined as
Qu
qu ¼ (5)
pðro2  ri2 Þ

5.1. Ring footing on homogeneous sand

Before performing the computations on two-layered sand, for validation, the solution for a ring footing
placed on a single layer homogenous sand was first obtained. These results were computed for (i) four
different values of /, namely, 30
, 35
, 40
, 45
, and (ii) by varying the ratio ri =ro between 0 and 0.9. On
lines similar to Keshavarz and Kumar (2017), the magnitude of qu for a ring footing placed on the sand
was related to the bearing capacity factor Nc by using the following expression:
q
Nc ¼ u  (6)
cðro  ri Þ 1  0:5r
ro
i

The values of Nc obtained from the present analysis are shown in Table 2 for different combinations of
ri =ro and /: It can be seen that the factor Nc increases with an increase in ri =ro up to ri  0:25 ro , and
after that, the Nc decreases continuously. For / ¼30
, the factor Nc tends to become maximum for a
solid circular footing (ri =ro ¼ 0Þ, and, after that, it decreases continuously with an increase in ri =ro :
For a ring footing placed on a single layer homogenous sand, the values of Nc obtained from the pre-
sent lower and upper bound FELA were compared with the corresponding solutions reported by (i)
Keshavarz and Kumar (2017) by using the method of stress characteristics, and (iii) lower and upper
bound solutions given by Kumar and Chakraborty (2015) by using the finite element limit analysis and
8 V. N. KHATRI ET AL.

H
Figure 3. The variation of the efficiency factor with ðro r iÞ
for different values of /2 with /1 ¼40
and for the value of ri/ro equal
to (a) 0; (b) 0.25; (c) 0.5; (d) 0.75; and (e) 0.9.

linear programming. The comparison of all these results is shown in Table 2. It can be seen that the pre-
sent values of Nc match reasonably well with the lower and upper bound values reported by Kumar and
Chakraborty (2015) especially for /  35o : For / ¼ 40o , the difference between the present results and
that reported by Kumar and Chakraborty (2015) has been found to increase especially for greater values
of ri =ro : It should be mentioned that in the analysis of Kumar and Chakraborty (2015), linear optimization
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL AND CIVIL ENGINEERING 9

H
Figure 4. The variation of the efficiency factor with ðro r iÞ
for different values of /2 with /1 ¼ 44
and for the value of ri/ro equal
to (a) 0; (b) 0.25; (c) 0.5; (d) 0.75; and (e) 0.9.

has been used and it involves an assumption of the hoop stress (rh Þ, and unlike the present analysis, no
adaptive mesh patterns were employed. In most of the cases, the Nc values of Keshavarz and Kumar
(2017) based on the method of stress characteristics are found to lie between the present lower and
upper bound values. Note that there is no solution available in the literature wherein the ultimate bear-
ing capacity of a ring footing can be determined using the conventional limit equilibrium based theories.
10 V. N. KHATRI ET AL.

Table 4. The variation of the efficiency factor associated with Hopt =ðro  ri Þ for different combinations of ri =ro , u1 and .u2
u1 u2 ri =ro ¼0 ri =ro ¼ 0:25 ri =ro ¼ 0:5 ri =ro ¼ 0:75 ri =ro ¼ 0:9
Hopt Hopt Hopt Hopt Hopt
ðro ri Þ
n ðro ri Þ
n ðro ri Þ
n ðro ri Þ
n ðro ri Þ
n

40 30 2.25 10.00 2.67 13.40 2.00 10.73 1.75 8.67 2.00 7.60
32 2.25 6.44 2.33 8.35 2.00 6.82 1.60 5.65 1.90 5.26
34 2.00 4.17 2.00 5.00 1.60 4.41 1.50 3.80 1.80 3.54
36 2.00 2.60 1.75 3.53 1.50 2.72 1.50 2.45 1.50 2.32
42 30 2.50 15.00 3.00 23.45 2.50 18.00 2.50 13.78 2.62 11.00
32 2.50 10.50 2.75 15.00 2.00 11.46 2.00 9.00 2.50 7.91
34 2.37 6.82 2.67 8.78 1.75 7.51 1.62 6.04 2.50 5.44
36 2.25 4.24 2.33 6.24 1.50 4.63 1.50 4.00 2.00 3.60
44 30 2.75 28.00 4.00 45.00 2.62 33.00 2.62 23.27 2.75 19.38
32 2.75 18.00 3.67 28.36 2.62 20.94 2.00 15.15 2.60 12.85
34 2.75 11.63 3.67 16.91 2.25 13.57 1.87 10.20 2.12 8.77
36 2.50 7.28 3.33 11.93 2.00 8.37 1.87 6.56 2.00 5.75
46 30 3.25 47.00 4.67 82.45 3.50 54.00 3.25 40.36 3.50 30.00
32 3.25 31.74 4.33 52.77 3.37 39.06 3.12 26.27 3.12 21.42
34 3.12 20.60 4.00 30.99 3.00 25.31 2.00 17.70 3.00 14.60
36 3.00 12.80 4.00 21.86 3.00 15.61 1.75 11.38 2.50 9.78

The most acceptable existing solution is based on the method of stress characteristics (Keshavarz &
Kumar, 2017), and the comparison of the results from the present analysis has been exclusively made in
this investigation. It should be stated that even the method of stress characteristics approach also
requires an assumption of the hoop stress.
The results from the present analysis were also compared with the experimental data of Saha (1978)
for / ¼ 31
, 35.5
, 38.68
and 40.5
with the usage of two different dilation angles, w ¼ / and w ¼
0:5 /: For a non-associated flow rule (w ¼ 0:5 /Þ, the equivalent friction angles (/) to be used in the
analysis, which is applicable for an associated flow rule, were obtained based on the following two
expressions recommended by Drescher and Detournay (1993):
tan/ ¼ gtan/ (7a)
cos w cos /
g¼ (7b)
1  sin wsin/
A comparison of the values of Nc obtained from the present analysis, with the usage of two different
dilation angles, namely, w ¼ / and w ¼ 0:5 /, with the experimental data of Saha (1978) is illustrated
in Table 3. It is seen that the factor Nc from the present analysis compares reasonably well with the data
reported by Saha (1978) and on the similar lines with that reported by Keshavarz and Kumar (2017) by
using a method of characteristics.

5.2. Ring footing on two-layered sand

For a given ri =ro , the analysis was carried out by gradually increasing the thickness (H) of the dense sand
layer until the magnitude of the bearing capacity becomes almost constant. The friction angle of the
dense layer, /1 , was varied from 40
to 46
. Whereas, the friction angle (/2 ) of the loose sand strata was
kept between 30
and 36
. The results were presented in terms of an efficiency factor (nÞ, which is
defined as the ratio of the bearing capacity for a footing with an inclusion of the dense sand layer to
that on the homogeneous loose sand without any ground improvement. For the sake of presentation,
only the results related to /1 ¼ 40
and 44
have been indicated in Figures 3 and 4 however the peak effi-
ciency factor ((nÞ for /1 ¼ 40
–46
is shown in Table 4.

5.2.1. The variation of the efficiency factor (nÞ with H=ðro  ri Þ

For finalizing the results, the average of the lower and upper bound values of the efficiency factor (nÞ
was obtained. The variation of the factor n with an increase in H=ðro  ri Þ for different combinations of
ri =ro , /1 and /2 is shown in Figures 3 and 4; the case with n ¼ 1 implies the footing is kept on a single
layer homogeneous loose sand. From Figures 3 and 4, it can be concluded that for a given combination
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL AND CIVIL ENGINEERING 11

Table 5. Different material input parameters used in the elasto-plastic finite element analysis (EP-FE).
Sand
Parameters Upper layer Lower strata
Material yield criterion Mohr-Coulomb
Friction angle (u
) u1 ¼ 40
u2 ¼ 30

Modulus of Elasticity (E) 50 20
(MPa)
Poisson’s ratio 0.30 0.20
Unit weight (kN/m3) 17.50 13.50
Dilation angle (w) (degrees) 20
, 40
5
, 30

Figure 5. The normalized pressure-settlement plots using EP-FE for four different values of H=ðro  ri Þ with ri =ro equal to (a) 0;
(b) 0.25; and (c) 0.50.

of ri =ro and /1 , the efficiency factor (n) increases extensively with an increase in H=ðro  ri Þ up to a cer-
tain optimal thickness (Hopt ) of the dense sand, and, after that, the value of n becomes more or less con-
stant. For instance, for /1 ¼ 40o , /2 ¼ 30o and ri =ro ¼ 0:5, corresponding to H=ðro  ri Þ equal to 0.5, 1, 2
and 2.5, the magnitude of n becomes equal to 3.33, 6.48, 10.73 and 10.74, respectively; it implies that
12 V. N. KHATRI ET AL.

Table 6. A comparison of the results on the basis of FELA and EP-FE for u1 ¼ 40o and u2 ¼ 3:0o
qult
cðro ri Þ

Present FELA (w ¼ /Þ EP-FE

Non-associated flow rule
H
Associated flow rule (w1 ¼ 20o
ri =ro ðro ri Þ Lower bound Upper bound (w ¼ /Þ w2 ¼ 5o )
0 0 11.60 12.06 12.06 10.68
0.25 20.74 21.58 21.58 18.38
0.5 29.56 30.66 29.42 26.38
0.75 39.04 40.84 40.84 36.06
1.00 50.10 52.36 52.38 46.74
1.25 62.26 65.18 65.32 58.40
1.50 75.36 79.30 79.54 69.08
1.75 89.94 94.34 94.34 83.08
2.00 103.40 109.62 110.18 98.86
2.25 115.96 124.52 124.74 113.48
2.50 114.84 124.20 124.34 113.54
0.25 0 9.45 10.53 10.53 10.12
0.30 27.27 29.46 29.34 26.36
0.70 41.55 43.61 43.57 38.89
1.0 55.54 58.10 58.07 51.62
1.30 71.51 74.42 74.45 68.35
1.70 88.51 92.73 89.60 83.58
2.00 108.20 112.84 112.69 101.41
2.30 123.93 134.35 132.80 121.37
2.70 124.14 140.82 140.80 121.98
3.00 125.09 141.00 140.95 125.26
3.30 124.95 140.95 140.95 125.18
0.5 0 7.44 7.88 8.00 7.84
0.50 24.60 26.40 26.40 23.80
1.00 47.84 51.64 51.48 46.80
1.50 66.68 72.64 73.20 66.04
2.00 77.48 87.20 87.32 79.56
2.50 77.48 87.20 87.48 80.52

with densification of the upper sand region, the bearing capacity can be increased up to 10.7 times the
corresponding value on homogeneous loose sand strata.
It can also be noted from Figures 3 and 4 that for given values of /1 , /2 , and H=ðro  ri Þ, the magni-
tude of n increases continuously with an increase in ri =ro up to ri =ro ¼ 0.25 and, after that, it decreases
continuously before reaching a certain minimum value. The highest value of the n was found to be 82.45



with /1 ¼ 46 and /2 ¼ 30 at ri =ro ¼ 0.25 and H=ðro  ri Þ ¼ 4.67. The values of Hopt =ðro  ri Þ for differ-
ent combinations of ri =ro , /1 and /2 are also depicted in Table 4. For given values of /1 and /2 , the
magnitude of Hopt =ðro  ri Þ increases with an increase in ri =ro up to ri =ro ¼ 0.25 and, after that, the value
of Hopt =ðro  ri Þ decreases with a further increase in ri =ro : For ri =ro ¼ 0.25 and /2 ¼ 30o , for the values of
/1 equal to 40
, 42
, 44
and 46
, the corresponding magnitude of Hopt =ðro  ri Þ becomes equal to 2.67,
3.0, 4.0 and 4.67, respectively.

5.2.2. Comparison with the obtained solution using the EP-FE method
At present, the results for a ring footing on layered sand are not available in the literature. To compare
the present results which were obtained based on the FELA approach, a few additional analyses were
also carried out for a two-layered sandy medium by using the displacements based elastoplastic finite
elements (EP-FE) method by using the relevant module in Optum G2. Three different values of rri o ,



namely, 0, 0.25, and 0.5, were used, and it was specified: /1 ¼ 40 and /2 ¼ 30 . The footing was
assumed to be perfectly rigid and rough. The values of the different input parameters for doing the EP-
FE analysis are shown in Table 5. The analysis was performed by employing both associated (w ¼ /) and
non-associated (w < /) flow rule; for a non-associated flow rule, the dilation angles (wÞ for the dense
and loose sand layers were kept equal to 20
and 5
, respectively. Note that in Optum G2, the analysis
begins after the prescription of the known magnitude of pressure on the footing rather than the
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL AND CIVIL ENGINEERING 13

Figure 6. The normal stress- distribution for a ring footing for u1 ¼ 40o , u2 ¼ 30o and ri =ro equal to ðaÞ 0; (b) 0.25; (c) 0.5
and (d) 0.90.

velocities below the footing. The meshes used in the analysis were exactly similar to those employed in
the FELA and hence not reproduced herein. The normalized pressure-settlement plots for five different
values of H=ðro  ri Þ are illustrated in Figure 5(a–c) corresponding to the values of ri =ro equal to 0, 0.25
and 0.50, respectively; the average pressure (qa Þ on the footing was normalized with respect to cðro  ri Þ
and on the other hand, the footing settlement (sÞ was normalized with respect to ðro  ri Þ: Note that
the magnitude of the applied pressure (qult Þ on the footing increases continuously with an increase in
the settlement before attaining the ultimate state of failure. The ultimate bearing capacity of the footing
was estimated from the pressure-settlement curves where the slope of the pressure-settlement becomes
either zero or steady with minimum value. The ultimate pressure on the footing increases with an
increase in the value of H=ðro  ri Þ: Note that as compared to ri =ro equal to 0 and 0.5, the magnitude of
the ultimate pressure becomes greater for ri =ro ¼ 0.25 perhaps due to the confinement of soil and the
interference of stresses in the annular region. It can also be noted that the magnitude of the qult
becomes lower for a non-associated flow rule as compared to the results using the associated flow rule.
Table 6 provides a comparison between the values of qult =cðro  ri Þ obtained based on FELA and EP-FE
approaches. It can be observed that the results from the EP-FE method lie in between the corresponding
values using the lower and upper bound FELA; in most of the cases, the collapse loads determined from
the EP-FE method compare very closely with the upper bound solution on the basis of the FELA. This
close comparison between the results based on two different approaches confirms the authenticity of
the present solution.
14 V. N. KHATRI ET AL.

Figure 7. The failure pattern for a ring footing for u1 ¼ 40o , u2 ¼ 30o and ri =ro ¼ 0.5 for H/(ro  ri) equal to (a) 0.5; (b) 1; (c)
1.5 and (d) 2.

5.2.3. Normal stress variation below the footing base

On similar lines with Kumar and Khatri (2008) analysis for strip footing on homogeneous sand, the nor-
mal stress distribution below the footing base was determined in the present case of the ring footing on
layered sand. For this study the computations were performed for /1 ¼ 40
and /2 ¼ 30
, ri/ro ¼ 0, 0.25,
0.5 and 0.9. Note that in Optum G2, the result section employed at the bottom of the footing directly
provides the variation of the normal stresses. The generated normal stress variation, based on lower
bound analysis, for different H/(ro  ri) values is shown in Figure 6. The normal stress was made non-
dimensional for c1(ro  ri). In the Figures 6(a–d) the H/(ro  ri) ¼0 resembles the case wherein the footing
is placed on loose sand with /2 ¼ 30
and the last case (H/(ro  ri) ¼ 2–3) represents a case wherein the
effect of the bottom loose layer becomes negligible. The study of Figure 6 suggests that the normal
stress below footing varies in a non-linear manner in almost all cases. As anticipated, the peak normal
stress increases with an increase in H/(ro  ri). For a given H/(ro  ri) the peak normal stresses goes on
decreasing with an increase in ri/ro value. As such, there is no experimental data available where the nor-
mal pressure distribution has been measured along the ring footing-soil interface, and, therefore, no such
comparison could be included in the present study. However, the obtained normal stress variation for
footing on a homogeneous sand case (H/(ro  ri) ¼0) resembles closely to that reported by Kumar and
Khatri (2008) for rough strip footing.

5.2.4. Failure patterns

Figure 7 illustrates the failure pattern for ri/ro ¼ 0.5 and /1 ¼ 40
, /2 ¼ 30
with the values of H/(ro 
ri) ¼ 0.5, 1, 1.5, 2. The proximity of the state of stress to failure, which is defined in terms of a parameter
as:
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
rr rz 2
2 þ s2rz
rr þrz  (8)
2 sin u
In the above equation, the numerator represents the radius of the Mohr circle with a given state of stress
(rr, rz, srz), whereas the denominator represents the radius of the Mohr circle at failure. The magnitude
of this ratio will become close to unity for the point of failure. In Figure 7 (a–d), the dark red color
 EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL AND CIVIL ENGINEERING 15

implies the material is at failure. For H/(ro  ri) 1.5, the plastic zone was contained in both top dense
sand and bottom loose sand. However, for H/(ro  ri)¼ 2, the plastic zone was confined only to the top
dense sand layer. Hence, it was evident that the efficiency factor should first increase and finally becomes
constant at H/(ro  ri)¼ 2, as indicated in Figures 7(a–d) & 3(c), respectively. Further, as evident from
Figure 7, with an increase in the thickness of the dense top layer, that is, H/(ro  ri) the lateral and verti-
cal extent of the failure zone increases continuously. Also, in all cases, the plastic zones contained well
within the selected problem domain.

6. Conclusions
The bearing capacity of a ring footing on a two-layered sandy medium has been computed by employ-
ing the lower and upper bound theorems of the finite element limit analysis. The improvement in the
ultimate bearing capacity with an inclusion of the dense sand layer has been expressed in terms of an
efficiency factor (n), which is defined as the ratio of the bearing capacities with and without the inclusion
of the dense sand layer. It was concluded that the magnitude of n increases continuously with an
increase in the thickness (H) of the dense sand layer before attaining a certain maximum value associated
with the optimal thickness (Hopt ). For different combinations of ri =ro , /1 and /2 , the magnitude of
Hopt =ðro  ri Þ were found to lie between 1.5 and 4.67, and the corresponding maximum magnitude of n
was found to vary between 2.32 and 82.45. The magnitude of n tends to become maximum generally
closer to ri =ro ¼ 0.25, and for this value of ri =ro , the value of Hopt =ðro  ri Þ lies between 2.67 and 4.67 and
the corresponding maximum value of n vary between 3.53 and 82.45. The results based on the finite
element limit analysis were found to compare well with the solutions reported in the literature and that
obtained based on the elastoplastic finite element method exclusively for a ring footing on a two-layered
sandy medium.

Nomenclature
/ Soil friction angle
H thickness of dense sand layer
Hopt Optimal thickness of dense sand
ro Outer radius of ring footing
ri Inner radius of ring footing
c Unit weight of the soil
d Soil-footing interface friction angle
Nc Bearing capacity factor due to unit weight
w Dilation angle for sand
/ Average friction angle with the consideration of dilatancy
n Efficiency factor

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

ORCID
Vishwas N. Khatri http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8624-465X

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