The Bearing Capacity Evaluations of a Spread Footing on Single Thick Stratum or Two-Layered Cohesive Soils

Abstract

Nowadays many countries plan to increase the percentages of renewable energies by developing offshore wind power. Due to the large sizes of offshore foundations, such as spudcan footings of jack-up barges or pile anchors of wind turbines, the affected soil depth range caused by the foundation under loading can be relatively deep, so the affected range may include a single thick layer or stratified soils. This paper utilizes limit analysis and FLAC numerical simulation to investigate the bearing capacity of a footing on single thick stratum or two-layered cohesive soils. Under nature deposition condition, the undrained shear strength of most cohesive soil approximately increases linearly as the depth increases. The closed-form upper bound solutions of fully rough or fully smooth footings on thick cohesive soils are provided, for the purpose of fast evaluations in practical engineering, and the outcomes are within the results from the FLAC simulation and slip circle method. The problems of punch-through shear failure or soil squeezing could be critical for two-layered soils under some conditions, and the associated bearing factors and the failure mechanisms from different methods are demonstrated and discussed in the article.