VARIATION OF BEARING CAPACITY OF SOIL WITH DIFFERENT PARAMETERS

Abstract

Foundations of engineering structures are designed to transfer and distribute their loading to the underlying soil. This design is required to satisfy the main design criteria namely the bearing capacity of the foundation. Bearing capacity is affected by various factors like shape of footing, depth of footing ,change in level of water table, eccentricity of loading unit weight of soil ,etc. This research aims to investigate the effects of the shape of footing, its depth and location of water table on the bearing capacity of layered soil determined by Terzaghi, Hansen and Meyerhof methods .The main findings of this study are that the values of ultimate bearing capacity and safe bearing capacity determined for square and circular shaped footings are found to be higher than strip and rectangular footings. As depth of foundation increases ultimate and safe bearing capacity of soil increases. The bearing capacity of soil is reduced to about 50% when water table is near ground level.