Effects of Footing Shape On Bearing Capacity of Rectangular Footings

GROUND MODIFICATION, PROBLEM SOILS, AND GEO-SUPPORT 481
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Effects of Footing Shape on Bearing Capacity of Rectangular Footings
Jing-Pei Li1, Le-Yi Chen2 and Fa-Yun Liang3

1
Professor, Department of Geotechnical Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200092, P. R.
China; lijp2773@mail.tongji.edu.cn
2
Ph.D. Candidate, Department of Geotechnical Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200092, P.
R. China; geotechbrian@gmail.com
3
Associate Professor, Department of Geotechnical Engineering, Tongji University, Shanghai, 200092,
P. R. China; fyliang@mail.tongji.edu.cn
ABSTRACT: Bearing capacity of rectangular footings was simulated with

three-dimensional finite difference program. In the analysis, soil is modeled using
Mohr-Coulomb model. Shape effects on bearing capacity of rectangular footing are
evaluated without using the conventional superposition. To avoid error induced by
superposition, cohesion and soil unit weight are normalized as one parameter.
Numerical results show that bearing capacity of rectangular footing decreased with
the increase of footing aspect ratio. The effects of footing shape are also different
with the characteristics of soil. In general, effects of footing shape are more obvious
for soils with high cohesion, while they are slight on soils with low cohesion.
INTRODUCTION
Ultimate bearing capacity may be estimated by various techniques, such as limit

equilibrium (Terzaghi 1943; Meyerhof 1951), method of characteristics (Sokolovskii
1965; Bolton and Lau 1993), limit analysis (Shied 1954; Chen 1975; Michalowski
1997), numerical methods (Griffiths 1982; Frydman and Burd 1997). The above
mentioned theories that are mainly based on plane strain conditions are only
appropriate for footings with high aspect ratio (length to width), such as strip
foundation in nature. However, many shallow foundations have a lower aspect ratio
with a rectangular or square footprint. There is no exact solution available for the
bearing capacity of a rectangular footing, even a simple case such as a surface
footing resting on an isotropic or homogeneous deposit obeying an undrained failure
criterion (Gourvenec, 2006).
For plane strain conditions, a slip plane develops only adjacent to the long side of
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Contemporary Topics in Ground Modification, Problem Soils, and Geo-Support
482 GROUND MODIFICATION, PROBLEM SOILS, AND GEO-SUPPORT
the footing, while for three dimensional footing, slip plane usually developed around
the footing, so the bearing capacity of a rectangular footing should be higher than a
strip footing. Conventional bearing capacity theories for rectangular footings
typically introduce some empirical modifications to the strip footing solutions to
consider effects of footing shape. It can be expressed with Eq. (1).
1
pu = cN c sc + qN q sq + γ BN γ sγ (1)
2
where the bearing capacity factors Nc, Nq and Nγ represent the effects of soil
cohesion c, surcharge q, and soil unit weight γ, respectively; sc, sq and sγ are shape
factors corresponding to Nc, Nq and Nγ, respectively; and B is the width of the strip
footing.
In order to obtain a rigorous solution of the above problem, the bearing capacity
of the rectangular footing was simulated with a three-dimensional finite difference
program in this paper. Computational results are presented in the form of
dimensionless bearing capacity depending on a dimensionless parameter, soil weight
parameter, and aspect ratio. Failure mechanism characteristics in limit states are also
presented.
REVIEW ON BEARING CAPACITY OF RECTANGULAR FOOTING
Before the numerical analysis, a brief review is given to illustrate the available
research as follows.
The first rigorous upper bound solution to a square and rectangular punch
indentation of a perfectly plastic and purely cohesive material was presented by
Shield and Drucker (1953); however, the solution is applicable only to clays in
undrained conditions. Since three-dimensional (3D) mechanisms in frictional soils
are very complex, there was no attempt in the following several decades until
Michalowski (2001). Upper bound solutions of limit analysis require making an
estimate of the shape and geometry of the most critical failure surface. In most cases,
the selection of the failure mechanism strongly influences the quality of the solution.
The deformation pattern is explicitly constrained in upper bound analyses, so the
failure mechanisms can hardly be optimized. The solutions based on mechanisms
proposed by Shield and Drucker (1953) and Michalowski (2001) are likely to
overestimate the ultimate bearing capacity by a large margin. 3D rigorous upper- and
lower-bound analyses of rectangular rough footings in clay and sand have been
performed, optimizing by nonlinear programming (Salgado 2004; Lyamin 2007).
Since the analyses of Salgado et al.(2004) and Lyamin et al. (2007) are more refined
and the upper-bound and lower-bound results are quite close, the quality of the
results are much better than those given by Shield and Drucker (1953) and
Michalowski (2001).
There were also some attempts to estimate the bearing capacity of rectangular
footings employing numerical techniques, such as FEM (Zhu and Michalowski 2005;
Gourvenec et al. 2006) which did not explicitly constrain the pattern of deformation.
482
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Different from upper-bound analyses, numerical techniques need not make

hypotheses nor search for the position of the slip surface; therefore numerical
techniques are easier and more efficient than the upper-bound method. The
comparison between limit analysis and numerical analysis presented by Michalowski
(2002) indicates that bearing capacity for square footings obtained by the latter
method was significantly lower than that from the former approach.
Most of these methods for bearing capacity of rectangular footings present results
in the form of Eq. (1). Terzaghi’s assumption of superposition, although widely used,
is still questionable since soil behavior in the plastic range is non-linear. The
theoretical justification for using superposition has been investigated by Davis and
Booker (1971). Michalowski’s (1997) limit analysis results show a dependence of all
coefficients on dimensionless parameters c/γB and q/γB in addition to φ. Once the
soil weight is considered, the Prandtl failure mechanism is no longer capable of
yielding exact results. Therefore, Nc and Nq in Eq. (1) are not strictly valid (Chen,
1975). Chen and Michalowski’s work suggests that the use of superposition is not
rigorous and leads to conservative estimates of the ultimate bearing capacity.
For a rough rectangular footing on surface of soil, dimensionless bearing capacity
qu/c depends on internal friction φ, dimensionless soil weight parameter G=γB/2c and
shape parameter L/ B (Chen, 1975). For smaller G, the material is equivalent to a soil
with high cohesion; and for larger G, bearing capacity depends mainly on soil weight
rather than cohesion. To avoid the error induced by superposition, the results were
presented in form of dimensionless bearing capacity qu/c, which depends on internal
friction φ, dimensionless soil weight parameter G and shape parameter L/ B rather
than shape factors based on strip footing.
THREE-DIMENSIONAL ANALYSIS MODEL
Numerical simulations were carried out with FLAC3D (Itasca Consulting Group
1997). The program is very suitable for analyzing nonlinear behavior of materials
and related instability and failure phenomena.
In numerical analyses, the bearing capacity was obtained by the swipe test, which
was introduced by Tan (1990). In small-strain numerical analyses, once ultimate
bearing capacity is reached, there is no further increase in bearing capacity with
increased displacement, hence the plastic stiffness at failure is zero and there is no
expansion of the failure locus.
Because of symmetry, only a quarter of the model is discretised (Fig. 1). The
mesh extends 10B from edges of the footing and 7B beneath the footing. The vertical
boundaries and the base are fixed in all three coordinate directions. The
displacements of symmetry planes are fixed in the normal direction. All
computations are performed for a rough soil-footing interface. The FLAC3D mesh is
composed of eight-node brick elements, subdivided into two overlapping sets of
constant-strain tetrahedral elements. Volumetric strain rates are averaged over each
set of tetrahedrons to avoid the over constraint problems common in FEM plasticity
formulations (Marti and Cundall 1982).
The elastic-perfectly plastic Mohr-Coulomb yield criterion was used in the
numerical simulations. Young’s modulus E = 2 × 105 kPa and Poisson ratio ν = 0.3
483
were assumed. (To ensure the small-strain, the Young’s modulus E used in numerical
simulation might be higher than that for real soils.) The dimensionless soil weight
parameter varied from 0.1 to 100. Five three-dimensional models were created to
investigate the shape effect on bearing capacity for L/ B = 1 (square), 1.5, 2, 3 and 5.
Footing
FIG. 1. The meshing of computational model (quarter symmetry)
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
As soil unit weight is normalized as G = γB/2c, the contributions of c and γ to

bearing capacity were replaced by parameter G. The normalization avoided the error
introduced by superposition. G also indicates the type of soil. A smaller G means the
material has higher cohesion, while a bigger G means the material has lower
cohesion.
Taking the example of φ = 30°, the normalized vertical bearing capacity was
calculated for a range of footing aspect ratios from 1 to 5 and the normalized soil
weight parameter from 0.1 to 100, and the results are shown in Fig. 2. In general, it
was found that lower aspect ratio leads to higher bearing capacity for the same soil
weight parameter G. It is also noticed that the extent of shape effects on bearing
capacity vary significantly with G. The shape effect decreases with increasing G. For
G = 0.1, the bearing capacity with L/ B = 1 is 37.4% larger than that for L/B = 5;
while for G = 100, the variation of bearing capacity for these different shapes was
not more than 2%.
The results indicate that footing shape affects the bearing capacity of soil with
high cohesion significantly and affects that of soil with low cohesion only slightly.
The difference can be explained by the influence range of the two soils. Fig. 3 shows
the influence range of footings in the two soils. Note that the influence range of the
footing in the soil with G = 0.1 is much larger than that in the soil with G = 100. It is
reasonable to conclude that the shape of the footing has a greater effect on bearing
capacity where there is a large influence range (high cohesion and high G).
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Conversely, where there is little influence range (low cohesion and high G), the
shape of the footing has minimal effect. Put another way, the bearing capacity
depends on the work of failure mechanism. For soil with high cohesion, the work
around the footing takes a big proportion in bearing capacity. Therefore, shape of
footing affects bearing capacity significantly. The range of failure mechanism in soil
with low cohesion is not as large as highly cohesive soil, so the work of failure
mechanisms is affected only slightly by footing shape. Generally speaking, a larger
influence range leads to greater shape effect. The phenomena were also confirmed by
Salgado et al. (2004), Zhu and Michalowski (2005) and Lyamin et al. (2007). Their
works show that sc is affected by shape significantly and sγ reach to 1 for any shapes.
L/B = 1
1000 L/B = 1.5
L/B = 2
L/B = 3
L/B = 5
pu /c
100
10
0.1 1 10 100
γB/2c
FIG. 2. Bearing capacity for rectangular footing of various shapes (φ = 30°)
(a) G = 0.1 (b) G = 100
FIG. 3. Plan view of footing’s influence range
485
CONCLUSIONS
In this paper, shape effects on bearing capacity of rectangular footing were

investigated by three-dimensional numerical analysis. Soil weight, width of footing
and soil cohesion are normalized as G = γB/2c to eliminate error induced by
superposition. In general, bearing capacity of rectangular footings decreased with an
increase in aspect ratio of the footing. The results show that the footing shape affects
bearing capacity of soil with high cohesion obviously and has no significant effect on
soil with low cohesion. In summary sensitivity of shape effect on bearing capacity
can be expressed by influencing range.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The work reported herein was supported by the Excellent Young Faculty
Cultivation Foundation at Tongji University and Shanghai Education Committee of
China (Grant No. TJU-07018). The authors wish to express their gratitude for the
above financial support.
REFERENCES
Bolton M.D. and Lau C.K. 1993. “Vertical bearing capacity factors for circular and
strip footings on Mohr-Coulomb soil.” Can. Geotech. J., Vol. 30(6): 1024-1033.
Chen, W. F. (1975). Limit analysis and soil plasticity. Elsevier, New York, N.Y.
Davis E.H. and Brooker J.R. (1971). The bearing capacity of strip footings from the
standpoint of plasticity theory. Proc. 1st Australian-New Zealand Conf. on
Geomechanics, Melbourne: 275-282
De Beer, E.E. (1970). “Experimental determination of the shape factors and the
bearing capacity factors of sand.” Géotechnique, Vol. 20: 387-411.
Frydman, S. and Burd, H.J. (1997). Numerical studies of bearing-capacity factor Nγ.
J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., Vol. 123(1): 20-29.
Gourvenec, S., Randolph, M., and Kingsnorth O. (2006). Undrained bearing capacity
of square and rectangular footings. Int. J. Geomech., Vol. 6(3): 147-157.
Griffiths, D.V. (1982). Computation of bearing capacity factors using finite elements.
Géotechnique, Vol. 32(3): 195-202.
Itasca Consulting Group. (2002). FLAC3D, Fast lagrangian analysis of continua in 3
dimensions, user’s manual, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.
Levin, E. (1955). “Indentation pressure of a smooth circular punch”. Q. Appl. Math.,
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Effects of Footing Shape On Bearing Capacity of Rectangular Footings

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GROUND MODIFICATION, PROBLEM SOILS, AND GEO-SUPPORT 481

Effects of Footing Shape on Bearing Capacity of Rectangular Footings

Jing-Pei Li1, Le-Yi Chen2 and Fa-Yun Liang3

ABSTRACT: Bearing capacity of rectangular footings was simulated with

Ultimate bearing capacity may be estimated by various techniques, such as limit

REVIEW ON BEARING CAPACITY OF RECTANGULAR FOOTING

Different from upper-bound analyses, numerical techniques need not make

THREE-DIMENSIONAL ANALYSIS MODEL

FIG. 1. The meshing of computational model (quarter symmetry)

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

As soil unit weight is normalized as G = γB/2c, the contributions of c and γ to

FIG. 2. Bearing capacity for rectangular footing of various shapes (φ = 30°)

(a) G = 0.1 (b) G = 100

FIG. 3. Plan view of footing’s influence range

In this paper, shape effects on bearing capacity of rectangular footing were

Vol. 2 (4), 301-332

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