BEARING CAPACITY ANALYSIS OF EMBEDDED FOUNDATION BY RIGID PLASTIC FINITE ELEMENT METHOD

Abstract

The ultimate bearing capacity formula of embedded foundation is specified in the guideline published by the Architectural Institute of Japan for design of building foundation. The rigid plastic finite element method was developed by Tamura and Ohtsuka to estimate the ultimate bearing capacity of footing. The characteristic of this method is to employ few strength parameters. It does not use the Poisson’s ratio and the elastic modulus since it directly deals with the limit state by disregarding the elastic deformation of building and ground. The strength parameters as cohesion, c and internal friction angle, φ are only employed. By performing a series of rigid plastic finite element analyses, the comparison of ultimate bearing capacity of embedded foundation was conducted between the formula of the Architectural Institute of Japan and the simulation results. On the dispersion failure mode of ground, the bearing capacity of penetration foundation was made clear by the width and the penetration length of foundation and the strength ratio of first and second layers of two layered ground.