Water Table Correction Factors for Settlements of Shallow Foundations in Granular Soils
Publication: International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 15, Issue 1
Abstract
Shallow foundations are designed to limit settlements within tolerable limits. Additional settlements produced by the rise of the water table due to rain or floods can jeopardize the integrity of the foundation. This paper proposes a rational method, based on strain influence factors, to predict the additional settlement produced by the rise of the water table on a footing resting on sands. The proposed method was validated using extensive laboratory test data, where model footings of five different shapes were loaded in sand placed at two relative densities, and the water level was raised from the bottom while the additional settlements were measured. The clean sands used in the tests were such that there were negligible capillary effects. Separate tests were carried out to demonstrate that the capillary effects were insignificant. The proposed method can be used as the basis for further studies that incorporate the effect of grain size distribution or the effects of water table fluctuations on additional settlement.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
The authors are grateful for Mr. Warren O’Donnell’s valuable contributions throughout the project, especially in the design and fabrication of the laboratory test setup. The constructive comments from the reviewers helped in improving the quality of this manuscript.
References
Agarwal, K. G., and Rana, M. K. (1987). “Effect of ground water on settlement of footing in sand.” Proc., 9th European Conf. on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, Vol. 2, Balkema, Rotterdam, Netherlands, 751–754.
Alpan, I. (1964). “Estimating the settlement of foundations on sand.” Civ. Eng. Public Works Rev., 59(700), 1415–1418.
Barnes, G. (2010). Soil mechanics: Principles and practice, 3rd Ed., Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, U.K.
Bazaraa, A. R. (1967). “Use of the standard penetration test for estimating settlements of shallow foundations on sand.” Ph.D. dissertation, Dept. of Civil Engineering, Univ. of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, Champaign, IL.
Bowles, J. E. (1977). Foundation analysis and design, 2nd Ed., McGraw Hill, New York.
Brinch Hansen, J. (1966). “Improved settlement calculation for sand.” Bulletin No. 20, Danish Geotechnical Institute, Copenhagen, Denmark, 15–19.
Burland, J. B., and Burbidge, M. C. (1985). “Settlement of foundations on sand and gravel.” Proc. Inst. Civ. Eng., 78(1), 1325–1381.
Cerato, A. B., and Lutenegger, A. J. (2007). “Scale effects of shallow foundation bearing capacity on granular material.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 1192–1202.
Das, B. M., and Sivakugan, N. (2007). “Settlements of shallow foundations on granular soil—An overview.” Int. J. Geotech. Eng., 1(1), 19–29.
Ferreira, H. N., and da Silva, C. A. F. (1961). “Soil failure in the Luanda region: Geotechnic study of these soils.” Proc., 5th Int. Conf. on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, Vol. 1, Dunod, Paris, 95–99.
Khanna, P. L., Varghese, P. C., and Hoon, R. C. (1953). “Bearing pressure and penetration tests on typical soil strata in the region of the Hirakud Dam project.” Proc., 3rd Int. Conf. on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, Vol. 1, Organizing Committee of ICOSOMEF, Zurich, Switzerland, 246–252.
Lee, J., and Salgado, R. (2002). “Estimation of footing settlement in sand.” Int. J. Geomech., 1–28.
Mayne, P. W., and Poulos, H. G. (1999). “Approximate displacement influence factors for elastic shallow foundations.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 453–460.
Morgan, A. B., Sanjay, K. S., and Sivakugan, N. (2010). “An experimental study on the additional settlement of footings resting on granular soils by water table rise.” Soils Found., 50(2), 319–324.
Murtaza, G., Athar, M., and Khan, S. M. (1995). “Influence of submergence on settlement of footing on sand.” J. Inst. Eng. (India), 76(5), 51–54.
Naval Facilities Engineering Command (NAVFAC). (1982). “Soil mechanics design manual 7.1.” NAVFAC DM-7.01, Dept. of the Navy, Alexandria, VA.
Peck, R. B., Hanson, W. E., and Thornburn, T. H. (1974). Foundation engineering, 2nd Ed., Wiley, New York.
Schmertmann, J. H. (1970). “Static cone to compute static settlement over sand.” J. Soil Mech. and Found. Div., 96(3), 1011–1043.
Schmertmann, J. H., Brown, P. R., and Hartman, J. P. (1978). “Improved strain influence factor diagrams.” J. Geotech. Engrg. Div., 104(8), 1131–1135.
Shahriar, M. A., Sivakugan, N., and Das, B. M. (2012a). “Settlements of shallow foundations in granular soils due to rise of water table: A critical review.” Int. J. Geotech. Eng., 6(4), 515–524.
Shahriar, M. A., Sivakugan, N., and Das, B. M. (2012b). “Strain influence factors for footings on an elastic medium.” Proc., 11th Australia–New Zealand Conf. on Geomechanics, Australian Geomechanics Society, St. Ives, Australia; New Zealand Geotechnical Society, Wellington, New Zealand, 131–136.
Shahriar, M. A., Sivakugan, N., and Das, B. M. (2013). “Settlement correction for future water table rise in granular soils: A numerical modelling approach.” Int. J. Geotech. Eng., 7(2), 214–217.
Teng, W. C. (1962). Foundation design, Prentice Hall of India, New Delhi, India.
Terzaghi, K. (1943). Theoretical soil mechanics, Wiley, New York.
Terzaghi, K., and Peck, R. B. (1967). Soil mechanics in engineering practice, 2nd Ed., Wiley, New York.
Terzaghi, K., Peck, R. B., and Mesri, G. (1996). Soil mechanics in engineering practice, 3rd Ed., Wiley, New York.
Tsukamoto, Y., Ishihara, K., Sawada, S., and Fujiwara, S. (2012). “Settlement of rigid circular foundations during seismic shaking in shaking table tests.” Int. J. Geomech., 462–470.
Vargas, M. (1961). “Foundations of tall buildings on sands in Sao Paulo, Brazil.” Proc., 5th Int. Conf. on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, Vol. 1, Dunod, Paris, 841–843.
Wuttke, F., Kafle, B., Lins, Y., and Schanz, T. (2013). “Macroelement for statically loaded shallow strip foundation resting on unsaturated soil.” Int. J. Geomech., 557–564.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
© 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Oct 8, 2013
Accepted: Feb 11, 2014
Published online: Feb 13, 2014
Published in print: Feb 1, 2015
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.