CHAPTER 1

Shallow Foundation

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Introduction
Foundation is a structure made of concrete, steel or wood to transmit
loads to the underlying soils. A geotechnical engineer must ensure that a
foundation satisfies the following two stability conditions:
(a) Ultimate Limit State - The foundation must not collapse or become
unstable under any conceivable loading. (Check the bearing capacity).
(b) Serviceability Limit State - Settlement of the structure must be within
tolerable limits (check the ultimate settlement).

Shallow foundation is one in which the ratio of the embedment depth (Df)
to the minimum plan dimension, which is usually the width(B), is Df/B ≤ 2.5.

Serviceability limit state is commonly adopted in the design of foundation.

Serviceability limit state defines a limiting deformation or settlement of a
foundation, which if exceeded, will impair the function of the structure that
it supports.

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Ultimate net bearing capacity (qult minus surcharge
of soil) is a pressure that capable to bring the soil to
collapse or failure. In practice, we NEVER USE
ULTIMATE NET BEARING CAPACITY TO DESIGN
FOUNDATION. This is because of spurious soil
variations, and uncertainties in soil test values and
structural loads. We usually divide the ultimate net
bearing capacity by a factor of safety (normally FS
=3) and name it as allowable net bearing capacity,
qallow(net).
Gross allowable bearing capacity ( qallow ) = Ultimate
bearing capacity / FS

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 Modes of Bearing Capacity Failure in Soil
1) General Shear Failure – Dense soils
2) Local Shear Failure – Loose soils
3) Punching Shear Failure – Very loose soils
Assume a load apply on a dense and loose sand, respectively. The failure
mechanisms for both cases will be as follows :
B
Footing Footing

Dense sand Loose sand

Failure plane: General shear failure Failure plane: Local shear failure
Qult Qult
Load Load
Collapse,
Settlement

Settlement
Pu = 5.14Bcu

Failure Failure

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Failure plane: Punching shear failure

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 qult = qc + qg + qq
Ultimate bearing capacity of soil is the contribution of
cohesion, unit weight of soil below base of footing and
surcharge of soil
General Equation of Ultimate Bearing Capacity, qult:
qult = c Nc (rc sc dc ic bc) + 0.5B’ g1 Ng (rg sg dg ig bg) + g2 Df Nq (rq sq dq iq bq)

Where g1 = effective unit weight of soil below foundation level (kN/m3)

g2 = effective unit weight of soil above foundation level (kN/m3)
N = soil bearing capacity factors
r = rigidity index reduction factors to compensate for a possible
punching-local shear condition
s = shape factors
d = depth factors
i = load inclination factors
b = base tilt factors

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Consideration of eccentric load :
B’ = B -2eB
L’ = L – 2eL

Note: If the load acts at the center of the foundation, B’ = B and

L’ = L.
eB > B/6 or eL > L/6, then tension develop. Since tensile strength
of soil is approximately zero, part of the footing will not
transmit loads to soil. You should design the footing eB < B/6
and eL < L/6 Q
L
eL
eB B

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Soil bearing capacity factors, N:
Nq = tan2 (45 + f/2)(e)p tanf
Nc = (Nq – 1) cot f (for f > 0o)
Nc = 5.14 (for f = 0o)
Ng = 2(Nq + 1) tan f

Rigidity index reduction factors, r:

Actual rigidity index, I 
E
2(1 + v)(c +  v tan f )
r

Where, E = soil modulus of elasticity (Normal soil ranging from 500 –

180,000 kN/m2)
v = Poisson’s ratio (Normal soil ranging from 0.1 – 0.5)
= Effective overburden pressure at a depth of Df + B/2
Critical rigidity index, 1  B'   f 
 exp 3.3  0.45
 cot 45   
2 
I
r ( critical )
2  L'  

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Continue on rigidity index reduction factors, r:
In most of the cases, Ir > Ir(critical), which means general shear failure mode applies,
thus rc , rq, rg = 1.

If Ir < Ir(critical), the rc , rq, rg can be obtained as below:

rq =

rc

rq
rc rq
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Shape factors, s:
sc = 1 + (B’/L’)(Nq/Nc)
sg = 1 – 0.4 (B’/L’)
sq = 1 + (B’/L’) tan f

Depth factors, d:
dg = 1
tan 1 ( D f / B' )
d q  1 + 2 tan f (1  sin f ) 2

57.3
1  dq
dc  dq  (when f > 0o)
N c tan f
tan 1 ( D f / B' )
dc  1 + (when f = 0o)
(3)(57.3)

All the depth factors = 1 if the shear strength of the soil above the footing base is low
compared with the soil below the footing base.

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Inclined loads are produced when footing is loaded with both
a vertical V and a horizontal Hi components of loading.
Normally footing is subject to combination of wind loads Hi
and gravity loads V.
Q: Vertical force to footing
Load Inclination factors, i: Qh: Horizontal force along footing
m
 Qh 
iq  1  
 Q + B' L' c cotf 
m +1
Qv
 Qh  L
ig  1   Q
 Q + B' L' c cotf 
Qh q B
 1  iq 
ic  iq  
f
 (when f > 0o)
 c
N tan 

 mQh  (when f = 0o)

ic  1   
 cN c B ' L' 

m = mL = (2+L’/B’) / (1+L’/B’) if the load inclined along L-axis.

m = mB = (2+B’/L’) / (1+B’/L’) if the load inclined along B-axis.
m =mq = mLcos2q + mBsin2q if the load inclined in a plane makes an angle q with the L-axis.
m= (mL2 + mB2)0.5 Use B and L ,not B’ and L’
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 4.2 Principle of Shallow Foundation Design: Spread Footings
Factor or Safety (SF)= qnet / Stress created by external
loading to the actual dimension of footing
Ultimate Bearing Capacitty, qult:
qult = c Nc (rc sc dc ic bc) + 0.5B g1 Ng (rg sg dg ig bg) + g2 Df Nq (rq sq dq iq bq)

g2 Df

qnet = qult g1 qnet = qult - g2 Df

If both side of Df is different, use the smaller Df
Ultimate Net Bearing Capacity, qnet
qnet = qult - g2 Df

Net Allowable Bearing Capacity, qallow:

qallow (net) = qnet/FS ; FS is in the range from 2 to 3, with FS = 3 is most often used.
Gross Allowable Bearing Capacity
qallow = qult / FS 12
Remember, we must use GROSS allowable bearing capacity, qall to design the
foundation. Our responsibility is to ensure that the stress from the structure,  is
lower than the allowable bearing capacity (i.e.  < qallow).

P (From structural analysis)

 = P/A
qallow qallow

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Load Bearing Capacity of Shallow Foundation Based on Plate Bearing Test

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4.3 Principle of Shallow Foundation Design: Mat Footings

A mat foundation is used when:

- Spread or individual footings cover over 50% of the foundation area.
- Pockets of soft soils are present.
- The structure is sensitive to differential settlement.

Consider the case below:

If all the loads act on a mat foundation are compensated by embedment

(i.e. q = g/Df), we name it as fully compensated raft. This kind of
foundation is deemed as a conservative design.

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4.5 Settlement
Settlement is practically impossible to be prevented.
However, as an geotechnical engineer, we have to ensure that
the settlement of foundation has not exceed the
serviceability limit state. There are many descriptions of
serviceability limit state depending on the function of the
structure.
Foundation settlement can be divided in 3 basic types:
uniform settlement, non-uniform settlement and tilt or
distortion.

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Distortion is caused by differential settlement. It is quantified
by d/l, where d is the maximum differential settlement and l
is the length over which the settlement occurs. The limit of
distortion can be calculated from:
d
Pmax  R
l
The maximum tolerable settlement is as below:

Soil type Values Spread / Isolated Mat / Raft

Footing Footing
Clay R 22,500 30,000

Pmax 75 mm 100 mm

Sand R 15,000 18,000

Pmax 50 mm 60 mm

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Immediate settlement:
Immediate settlement is also known as elastic
settlement. To determine the immediate settlement
of shallow foundations, we need to take into account
the effects of soil stiffness, embedment, and soil-wall
resistance. The immediate settlement can be
calculated as follows:

Where P = total vertical loads, Eu = undrained elastic

modulus of soil, L is one-half the length of
foundation, vu is poissons’ ratio of soil, ms, memb, and
mwall are the soil stiffness, embedment, and soil-wall
interface factors, respectively. 18
Where Ab is the actual area of the foundation base and Aw is the area
of the wall in contact with the embedded portion of the footing. B is
one-half the length of foundation.

We should not consider the reduction of settlement resulting from

the wall factor if we are unsure whether the full wall resistance is
mobilized. In this case, mwall = 1.
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Primary consolidation Settlement: (Skempton-Bjerrum
method)
Calculation of primary consolidation for shallow foundation,
we need to take into account the effect of lateral stress and
strain. As the result, a factor, mSB is applied to the one-
dimensional primary consolidation:

where mSB can be referred to Figure 1

= Induced vertical stress referred to Table 1

= Modulus of volume compressibility

= Thickness of clay layer

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 Figure 1
Hc : Depth of clay layer B: Equivalent diameter of circular
A : Porewater coefficient footing =2(area of base/3.1415)0.5
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Table 1

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