Seismic Bearing Capacity of Shallow Strip Footings Embedded in Slope

• Published in: International journal of geomechanics Vol. 6; no. 3; pp. 176 - 184
• Main Authors: Choudhury, Deepankar, Subba Rao, K. S
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Society of Civil Engineers 01.05.2006
• Subjects: TECHNICAL PAPERS
• ISSN: 1532-3641; 1943-5622
• DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)1532-3641(2006)6:3(176)

The seismic bearing capacity factors for shallow strip footings embedded in sloping ground with general c-ϕ soil are found out by using the limit equilibrium method. The seismic forces are considered as pseudostatic forces acting both on the footing and on the soil below the footing. A composite failure surface involving planar and logspiral is considered in the analysis. A new methodology to establish minimum bearing capacity factors has been adopted by numerical iteration technique to determine the critical focus of the logspiral. Three different types of failure surfaces are considered depending on the embedment depth and ground inclinations. The seismic bearing capacity factors with respect to cohesion, surcharge and unit weight components viz. Ncd , Nqd , and Nγd , respectively, are found out separately for various values of soil friction angles and seismic acceleration coefficients both in the horizontal and vertical directions, ground inclinations, and embedment depths. Results of the present study are reported in tabular form. The effect of parametric variation on seismic bearing capacity factors has been studied. Comparisons of the proposed method with available theories in the seismic case are also presented.