The bearing capacity of dykes and fills founded on soft soils of limited thickness

Abstract

This paper analyzes the stability of dykes and fills founded on soft clay layers of limited depth and is divided into two sections.In the first section, the critical condition at which failure is impending is analyzed in terms of the bearing capacity in the soft clay foundation, instead of the conventional slope stability approach of the fill–clay foundation interaction. The theoretical approach is based upon the works of Jurgenson, Hill, Meyerhof, Mandel, and Salençon. The solutions obtained by these investigators are of considerable interest and may be easily applied to geotechnical engineering problems.In the second section, several case histories dealing with failures of fills on soft clays will be presented and analyzed by means of the present approach. It will be shown that the plasticity approach, when compared with the conventional slope stability analysis, is much easier to apply and is able to represent adequately the failure criterion of fills founded on layers of soft clays of limited depth. Keywords: bearing capacity, soft clays, plasticity, fills, limited thickness.