Undrained Bearing Capacity of Deeply Buried Flat Circular Footings under General Loading

Abstract

Estimation of a footing’s bearing capacity under general loading is a topic of wide interest, especially for the offshore energy industry. Although there have been several studies in the past few decades on shallow footings under general loading, limited work has been done for deeply buried footings. This paper presents results of a numerical investigation into the undrained bearing capacity of deeply buried flat circular footings in clay of both uniform and linearly increasing shear strength profiles. The footings’ uniaxial bearing capacities and failure surfaces under combined vertical, horizontal, and moment loading are reported. The results are analyzed in the context of application by the mobile jack-up industry, for which understanding of the circular spudcan footing’s bearing capacity under general loading is required for site-specific assessments. The paper also presents a parametric study on the effect of a footing’s aspect ratio (thickness/diameter) on its bearing capacity. To conclude, a closed-form expression is proposed to formulate the failure surfaces of the footings under general loading.