BEARING CAPACITY THEORY FROM EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS

IN COMMENTING OF THE ORIGINAL PAPER, ENTITLED "BEARING CAPACITY THEORY FROM EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS," IT IS POINTED OUT THAT THE AUTHORS TRY TO JUSTIFY THEIR COMPUTATION OF BEARING CAPACITY OF SURFACE FOUNDATIONS ON THE BASIS OF STATICALLY AND KINEMATICALLY INADMISSIBLE FAILURE PATTERNS BY REFERRING TO ALLEGED DISCREPANCY BETWEEN THE SLIP SURFACES OBSERVED ON TRANSPARENT WALLS OF A "PLANE-STRAIN" TEST BOX AND THE THEORETICAL SLIP SURFACES ASSUMED IN CONVENTIONAL BEARING CAPACITY COMPUTATIONS. THE AUTHORS DO NOT SEEM TO BE AWARE OF THE FACT THAT THE QUESTION OF FAILURE PATTERNS UNDER STRIP FOUNDATIONS IN SAND HAS ALREADY BEEN SETTLED IN THE LITERATURE (DE BEER AND VESIC). SINCE MOST OF THE RELEVANT REFERENCES WERE PUBLISHED IN FOREIGN LANGUAGES, AND PROVIDE LITTLE DETAIL ANYHOW, THE WRITER MAKES A FEW SUMMARY COMMENTS ON THIS SUBJECT TO SPARE FUTURE RESEARCHERS FROM POSSIBLE FUTILE EFFORTS.