Ajloun National University

Civil Engineering Department

Geotechnical Engineering
Lecturer: Eng. Hadeel N. Alzghool

Shallow Foundations: Ultimate Bearing Capacity

Part 2

Summer semester, 2020

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 4.10 Eccentrically Loaded Foundations
■ In several instances, as with the base of
a retaining wall, foundations are
subjected to moments in addition to the
vertical load.

■ In such cases, the distribution of

pressure by the foundation on the soil is
not uniform.

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 4.10 Eccentrically Loaded Foundations
■ The nominal distribution of pressure is:

■ Figure 4.17b shows a force system

equivalent to that shown in Figure 4.17a.
The distance (e) is the load eccentricity.

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 4.10 Eccentrically Loaded Foundations
■ Substituting Eq. (4.46) into Eqs. (4.44) and (4.45)
gives:
■ If e < B/6

■ Note that, in these equations, when the eccentricity e

becomes B/6, qmin is zero.

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 4.10 Eccentrically Loaded Foundations
■ If e > B/6, qmin will be negative.
which means that tension will develop. Because soil
cannot take any tension, there will then be a separation
between the foundation and the soil underlying it.

The nature of the pressure distribution on the soil will be

as shown in Figure 4.17a.
■ The value of qmax is then:

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 4.10 Eccentrically Loaded Foundations
■ Figure 4.18 shows the nature of failure surface in soil for a surface strip foundation subjected
to an eccentric load.

■ The factor of safety for such type of loading against bearing capacity failure can be evaluated
as:

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 4.11 Ultimate Bearing Capacity under Eccentric
Loading—One-Way Eccentricity
Effective Area Method (Meyerhoff, 1953)
The following is a step-by-step procedure for
determining the ultimate load that the soil
can support and the factor of safety against
bearing capacity failure:
■ Determine the effective dimensions of
the foundation (Figure 4.19a)

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 4.11 Ultimate Bearing Capacity under Eccentric
Loading—One-Way Eccentricity
Effective Area Method (Meyerhoff, 1953)
■ Use Eq. (4.26) for the ultimate bearing
capacity:

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 4.11 Ultimate Bearing Capacity under Eccentric
Loading—One-Way Eccentricity
Effective Area Method (Meyerhoff, 1953)
■ The total ultimate load that the
foundation can sustain is:

■ The factor of safety against bearing

capacity failure is:

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 4.11 Ultimate Bearing Capacity under Eccentric
Loading—One-Way Eccentricity
Effective Area Method (Meyerhoff, 1953)
It is important to note that qu is the ultimate bearing
capacity of a foundation of width B’= B - 2e
with a centric load (Figure 4.19a).
■ However, the actual distribution of soil reaction at
ultimate load will be of the type shown in Figure
4.19b. In Figure 4.19b,
■ qu(e) is the average load per unit area of the
foundation:

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 4.11 Ultimate Bearing Capacity under Eccentric
Loading—One-Way Eccentricity
Effective Area Method (Meyerhoff, 1953)

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 4.11 Ultimate Bearing Capacity under Eccentric
Loading—One-Way Eccentricity
Prakash and Saran Theory
■ Prakash and Saran (1971) analyzed the problem of
ultimate bearing capacity of eccentricallyand vertically
loaded continuous (strip) foundations by using the
one-sided failure Surface in soil, as shown in Figure
4.18.
■ According to this theory, the ultimate load per unit
length of a continuous foundation can be estimated as:

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 4.11 Ultimate Bearing Capacity under Eccentric
Loading—One-Way Eccentricity
Prakash and Saran Theory

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 4.11 Ultimate Bearing Capacity under Eccentric
Loading—One-Way Eccentricity
Prakash and Saran Theory

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 4.11 Ultimate Bearing Capacity under Eccentric
Loading—One-Way Eccentricity
Prakash and Saran Theory

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 4.11 Ultimate Bearing Capacity under Eccentric
Loading—One-Way Eccentricity
Prakash and Saran Theory
■ According to this theory, For rectangular foundations,
the ultimate load can be given as:

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 4.11 Ultimate Bearing Capacity under Eccentric
Loading—One-Way Eccentricity
Prakash and Saran Theory

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