Undrained Bearing Capacity of Two-Strip Footings on Spatially Random Soil

Abstract

A probabilistic study on the interference of two parallel rough rigid strip footings on a weightless soil with a randomly distributed undrained shear strength performed. The problem is studied using the random finite element method, where nonlinear finite element analysis is merged with random field theory within a Monte Carlo framework. The variability of undrained shear strength is characterized by a lognormal distribution and an exponentially decaying spatial correlation length. The estimated bearing capacity statistics of isolated and two footings cases are compared and the effect of footing interference discussed. Although interference between footings on frictionless materials is not very great, the effect is shown to be increased by soil variability and spatial correlation length.