Bearing capacity of strip foundations near vertical cuts in unsaturated clay Available to Purchase

Investigations into the bearing capacity of foundations near a vertical cut considering saturated or dry soil are available; however, in the field, soil is unsaturated. The resistance of soil against shear foundation failure in unsaturated soil is influenced by the matric suction based on changes in flux conditions (evaporation, no flux and infiltration) at the surface, the rate of flux and the water table position. Furthermore, the bearing capacity of a foundation near a vertical cut depends on its location from the edge of the cut, the cut height, shear strength parameters and the unit weight of soil, which affect the overall stability of the vertical cut. In this work, the bearing capacity of a strip foundation located near a vertical cut in unsaturated clay was determined, accounting for the influence of flux and soil parameters, water table position, location of the foundation from the cut face and cut height. The yielding of unsaturated clay was modelled using the modified Mohr–Coulomb yield criteria based on the unified effective stress approach to incorporate matric suction stress in the failure condition. The maximum magnitude of load supported by the foundation was computed in the framework of lower bound finite-element analysis with second-order conic optimisation. The load-carrying capacity of the foundation is presented in terms of the bearing capacity factor as a function of the studied influencing parameters in the form of non-dimensional charts.