Foundation Uniform Pressure and Soil‐Structure Interaction

Practicing foundation engineers tend to consider the foundation load as the point load when they want to consider its influence on the adjacent foundations. They believe that it will yield conservative results when a Boussinesq equation is considered. This derivation shows that such an assumption is groundless. The effect of uniform pressure on the adjacent foundations could be as high as 25% more than its effect when the pressure is lumped as a concentrated load at the center of the footing. The derivation converts the square footing into a shape that fits the polar coordinates. Such conversion facilitates the integration of the uniform pressure effect of one footing on the adjacent footings. Parameters and limits of integration are derived, then used in a practical example.