Numerical simulation of bearing capacity for rigid footing on cohesive soil

Abstract

Foundation is one of the main component structures in civil engineering construction. It is crucial to make sure that the load distribution on the soil is adequate to prevent soil failure.. Foundation transfers the loads from superstructure to substructure or soil. A foundation plays an important role as an interface between the load carrying components of a structure to the ground. Foundations can be classified into two categories. Those are shallow foundations and deep foundation. To make sure that the load distribution is sufficient, the size and type of foundation should be well determined. The increases size of footing which compared with the column supports gives and increased contact area between the footing and the soil. Besides that the increasing of friction angle will increase the value of bearing capacity factor. So, the increasing of bearing capacity factor will increase the ultimate bearing capacity and automatically increasing the value of allowable or safe loading to the footing. In this study have two methods to analysis the value of bearing capacity which is Terzaghi’s equation and Meyerhof / Hansen’s equation. Therefore, a computer programming is to be developed using Visual Basic 6.0 which is able to analyze and design the foundation or footing such as strip, square, circular and rectangular footing. Plaxis 2D will validate the computer programming to make sure the computer programming can be used. The comparison between both computer programming is discussed in this study. The computer programming is expected to reduce time and its nature is easy to use and understand.