Journal of Advanced Materials in Engineering (Esteghlal)

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A finite element program based on elastic –plastic model of Mohr-Coulomb criterion was used to evaluate the bearing capacity coefficients of soil under shallow strip flexible footing . The results were compared with others’ analytical results and it was found that the present study could offer quite consistent and rather precise values for the bearing capacity coefficients . The effect of different parameters such as E , υ, φ ,ψ ,γ , type of mesh idealization ,type of elements ,type of load distribution at the footing base have been examined and some new results obtained and discussed. The main conclusion can be summarized as : that the values of bearing capacity coefficients for any particular amount of friction angle should not be expressed as a single number solely dependent on the friction angle ,but the accurate values must be considered as the values dependent on some other effective parameters , which have been mentioned above . Keywords : soil bearing capacity , finite element , Mohr-Coulomb , shallow footing

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In recent years, determining bearing capacity of piles from in-situ testing data as a complement to static and dynamic analysis has been used by geotechnical engineers. In this paper, different approaches for estimating bearing capacity of piles from SPT data are studied and compared. A new method based on N value from SPT is presented. Data averaging, failure zone and plunging failure of piles are revisited in the light of this new method. A data bank was compiled including 42 full scale pile load tests in sites where SPT was performed close to pile locations. Comparison of current methods by error investigation with statistical and cumulative probability approaches demonstrates that the new method predicts pile capacity with more accuracy and less scatter than others. Therefore, it can be applied as a suitable solution in geotechnical design.

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Application of pile-raft foundations, which are known as “compound foundations”, is a suitable alternative in the case of heavy load structures. The interaction behavior of pile raft foundations makes these systems very complex to analyze. Different methods have been proposed to determine the bearing capacity of piled raft systems and distribution of loads between the components, i.e. pile group and mat. These methods are generally categorized into computer-based and conventional methods. In most of these methods, the bearing capacity of the mat, which is often a great portion of the total capacity, is neglected. Also, some model parameters used in these methods, as well as pile group or raft stiffness, cannot be determined by routine tests or calculations. In this study, a number of recent analytical methods of piled raft system are presented. A new method is then proposed which is based on settlement analysis of piled raft foundation and distribution of load between pile group and mat foundation, which regards the interaction of compound systems as an equivalent block foundation. In this approach, settlement is computed based on the concept of neutral plane according to which relative settlement of soil and pile group become the same. Two practical case studies are implemented for validation of the method. The comparison demonstrates favorable results for the proposed method.