BEARING CAPACITY OF ECCENTRICALLY LOADED

SHALLOW FOUNDATION

Name: JIE XIN

Registration No: 100237096
Supervisor : Dr. Jonathan Black
Session: 2010-2011
 CHAPTER 1 BACKGROUND OF THIS THESIS
• Generally, shallow foundation is designed to transfer vertical load to relatively
shallow depth through end bearing.

The load path:

superstructure transfer loads and moments its adjacent element below it
all loads and moments come to foundation structure finally transfer
them to the underlying soil or rock strata.

• In fact the applied vertical load places at an eccentricity e away from the centroid
of the foundation.
• The presence of certain amount of eccentricity of loading in the foundation will
apparently induce a moment which will cause the rotation of the foundation.

• Consequently, the overturning of the foundation will reduce the load bearing capacity
and its overall stability as result the failure could occur under this circumstance.

CHAPTER 2 OVERVIEW OF THIS PROJECT

• To investigate the simple case of a shallow foundation
subjected to a vertical static load which acts either at the
center of the footing or away from the center of the
footing.

• To perform a series of laboratory tests on a mathematical

model footing placing on semi-infinite layer of sand.

• To validate common theoretical design method such as

the ‘equivalent area method’ developed by Meyerhof
(1953).

• To perform parametric studies, numerical analysis such

as GEOSTRUCTURAL ANALYSIS should be involved
CHAPTER 3 AIMS, OBJECTIVES AND METHODOLOGY
Aims and Objectives:

• To understand the background of this topic

• To determine the impact of the load eccentricity
• To determine the size, shape of shallow foundation and the material of the soil as
variable parameters.
• To test the different value of eccentricity e by performing the lab experiments.
• To verify ‘equivalent area method’ is conservative to dealing with eccentric loading.
• To perform parametric studies by using numerical software
• To allocate and control the project time properly by Gantt chart
• To summarize and make conclusion and recommendations.

Methodology:

• Study of various conditions, a footing has to satisfy while held in static equilibrium
• Identification of various cases of vertical central load and eccentric load
• Identification of various load and safe bearing capacity cases
• Use of Trial and Error solutions
• Use of charts and tables as prevalent in literature
• Development of data comparison and analysis
CHAPTER 4 THE EXAMPLE OF LABORATORY EXPERIMENT
A testing apparatus was set up to test foundations subjected to inclined and eccentric
loading. The experiments were performed in medium loose sands only.

A model foundation test rig was set up with a soil tank and a machine for applying
constant rate of vertical displacement.

Output:
CHAPTER 5 THE CONCEPT OF THE THEORETICAL APPROACH
Equivalent area method:

• Meyerhof (1953 ) proposed a semi-empirical procedure to estimate the ultimate

bearing capacity of a shallow foundation subjected to eccentric loading that is
generally referred to as the ‘equivalent area method’.
CHAPTER 6 PROPOSED NUMERICAL SOFTWARE
To data analysis, there will be introduced a software such as GEOSTRUCTURAL
ANALYSIS.

•Two features of GEO are adequate to study this project:

1.Select from a variety of footing including circular, rectangular, strip footing, centric,
eccentric, etc.
2.Evaluate spread footing bearing capacity against a variety of accepted methods.

•Dialogs from Structural Design Software – Footing

CHAPTER 7 GANNT CHART
THANK YOU