PROBABILISTIC ANALYSIS OF BEARING CAPACITY OF SHALLOW FOUNDATIONS USING THREE-DIMENSIONAL LIMIT ANALYSES

Abstract

Strip shallow foundations on random heterogeneous soil responding in undrained conditions are analyzed using three-dimensional upper limit analysis and Latin Hypercube sampling. The results obtained considering the three-dimensional variability of soil are compared with results using plane models, showing significant differences in terms of both mean and standard deviation of bearing capacity. An averaged two-dimensional model fitted to a small set of three-dimensional samples is shown to yield accurate predictions of the bearing capacity distribution.