Abstract
The procedure which is currently followed in determining the safety factor of shallow footings against failure, does not consider the loading path, i.e. the way the vertical load, the horizontal load and the bending moment applied on the footing vary with respect to each other. A more realistic approach is developed which takes into account the feasibility of the failure load condition of each particular footing, defined by the loading path. This is acheived by determining the intersection point of the load-path and the failure envelope of the footing.
