Numerical Studies on Combined VH Loading and Inclination Factor of Circular Footings on Sand

Abstract For circular rigid footings with a rough base on sand, combined vertical - horizontal loading capacity was studied by three-dimensional numerical modelling. A numerical model was implemented to simulate the swipe loading and the probe loading methods and an interpretation procedure was devised in order to eliminate the numerical error from the restricted mesh density. Using the Mohr-Coulomb plasticity model, the effect of friction angle was studied under the associated flow-rule condition. The swipe loading method, which is efficient in that the interaction diagram can be drawn with smaller number of analyses, was confirmed to give similar results with the probe loading method, which follows closely the load-paths applied to real structures. For circular footings with a rough base, the interaction diagram for combined vertical (V) - horizontal (H) loading and the inclination factor were barely affected by the friction angle. It was found that the inclination factors for strip and rectangular footings are applicable to circular footings. For high H/V ratios, the results by numerical modelling of this study were smaller than the results of previous studies. Discussions are made on the factors affecting the numerical results and the areas for further researches.

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