Performance assessment of borehole arrangements for the design of rectangular shallow foundation systems

authored by: Marcin Chwała, Danko J. Jerez, Hector A. Jensen, Michael Beer
Abstract: This study proposes a framework to evaluate the performance of borehole arrangements for the design of rectangular shallow foundation systems under spatially variable soil conditions. Performance measures are introduced to quantify, for a fixed foundation layout and given soil sounding locations, the variability level of the foundation system bearing capacities in terms of their mean values and standard deviations. To estimate these measures, the recently proposed random failure mechanism method (RFMM) has been adopted and extended to consider any arrangement of rectangular foundations and boreholes. Hence, three-dimensional bearing capacity estimation under spatially variable soil can be efficiently performed. Several numerical examples are presented to illustrate the applicability of the proposed framework, including diverse foundation arrangements and different soil correlation structures. Overall, the proposed framework represents a potentially useful tool to support the design of geotechnical site investigation programs, especially in situations where very limited prior knowledge about the soil properties is available.
Organisation(s): Institute for Risk and Reliability
External Organisation(s): Wroclaw University of Technology
Universidad Tecnica Federico Santa Maria
Tongji University
University of Liverpool
Type: Article
Journal: Journal of Rock Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering
Volume: 15
Pages: 3291-3304
No. of pages: 14
ISSN: 1674-7755
Publication date: 12.2023
Publication status: Published
Peer reviewed: Yes
ASJC Scopus subject areas: Geotechnical Engineering and Engineering Geology
Electronic version(s): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jrmge.2023.05.009 (Access: Open)