Behavior of Square Footing Resting on Gypseous Soil and Surrounded by a Sheet Pile Wall

Laboratory model is used in this study to investigate the behavior of centrally loaded square footing resting on gypseous soil, and surrounded by a sheet pile wall at a distance of 2B from the footing edge and extend in depth to 2B as well. During this study the soil were subjected to ten cycles of saturation and drainage at one-week interval to simulate heavy rainfalls or floods. It should be noted that the soaking water were added only outside the area surrounded by the sheet pile. Four points were chosen to detect gypsum solubility, three of them below the footing edge at different depths and one outside the sheet pile wall for comparison. It has been found that the dissolved gypsum below the footing is significantly less than the one outside the sheet pile wall. For each cycle of saturation-drainage the gypsum content is found to be reduced by 3 % and 0.8 % for the outsider point and for average of the three points respectively. Settlement during first cycle of saturation – drainage was twice as the second cycle and about four times of the third cycle. However, this first cycle settlement is about 25 % of the settlement of footing where no sheet pile wall is used. To sum up, the sheet pile wall found to be an effective protection to reduce the collapsibility of gypsum soil and to reduce footing settlement.

Bearing capacity of E-shaped footing on layered sand

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to estimate the ultimate bearing capacity of the E-shaped footing resting on two layered sand using finite element method. The solution was implemented using ABACUS software. Design/methodology/approach: The numerical study of the ultimate bearing capacity of the E-shaped footing resting on layered sand and subjected to vertical load was carried out using finite element analysis. The layered sand was having an upper layer of loose sand of thickness H and lower layer was considered as dense sand of infinite depth. The various parameters varied were the friction angle of the upper (30° to 34°) and lower (42° to 46°) layer of sand as well as the thickness (0.5B, 2B and 4B) of the upper sand layer. Findings: The results reveal that the dimensionless ultimate bearing capacity was found to decrease with the increased in the H/B ratio for all combinations of parameters. The dimensionless ultimate bearing capacity was maximum for the upper loose sand friction angle of 34° and lower dense sand friction angle of 46°. The results further reveal that the dimensionless bearing capacity of the E-shaped footing was higher in comparison to the dimensionless bearing capacity of the square footing on layered sand (loose over dense). The improvement in the ultimate bearing capacity for the E-shaped footing was observed in the range of 109.35% to 152.24%, 0.44% to 7.63% and 0.63% to 18.97% corresponding to H/B ratio of 0.5, 2 and 4 respectively. The lowest percentage improvement in the dimensionless bearing capacity for the E-shaped footing on layered sand was 0.44 % at a H/B = 2 whereas the highest improvement was 152.24 % at a H/B = 0.5. Change of footing shape from square to E-shaped, the failure mechanism changes from general shear to local shear failure. Research limitations/implications: The results presented in this paper were based on the numerical study conducted on E-shaped footing made out of a square footing of size 1.5 m x 1.5 m. However, further validation of the results presented in this paper, is recommended using experimental study conducted on similar size E-shaped footing. Practical implications: The proposed numerical study can be useful for the architects designing similar types of super structures requiring similar shaped footings. Originality/value: No numerical study on E-shaped footing resting on layered sand (loose over dense) were conducted so far. Hence, an attempt was made in this article to estimate the bearing capacity of these footings.