Numerical Study of the Effect of Foundation Size for a Wide Range of Sands
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 135, Issue 1
Abstract
This paper presents a numerical investigation of the effect of foundation size on the response of shallow circular foundations on siliceous and calcareous sands. The study is based on the predictive capabilities of the MIT-S1 soil model for simulating both the compression and shear behaviors of natural sands over a wide range of densities, values and confining pressures. The paper highlights the variations in the deformation mechanisms for the siliceous and calcareous sands cases. The assessment of the bearing capacity factor, , is examined, showing a dramatic decrease in the values with increasing foundation size for the case of footings on calcareous sands, eventually converging to a terminal value. At this stage the sand resistance is insensitive to variations in initial density and foundation size because the sand tends to loose its initial characteristics due to grain crushing, leading the material rapidly toward ultimate conditions. In the silicious sand case, it is found that, eventually, for extremely large footing diameters, the deformation mechanism progresses toward a punching shear mechanism, rather than the classical rapture pattern accompanied by surface heave as employed in current bearing capacity equations. A dimensional transition between the failure mechanisms can clearly be defined, referred to as a “critical size” in the relationship.
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Acknowledgments
The work presented in this paper forms part of the research activities of the Centre for Offshore Foundation Systems (COFS), established under the Australian Research Council’s Research Centres Program. The writers would like to gratefully acknowledge Professor Andrew Whittle from MIT for supplying an implemented version of the MIT-S1 model in ABAQUS.
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© 2009 ASCE.
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Received: Mar 15, 2007
Accepted: Apr 30, 2008
Published online: Jan 1, 2009
Published in print: Jan 2009
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