The bearing capacity equations presented in Chapter 6 involve cases in which thesoil supporting the

foundation is homogeneous and extends to a considerable depth.The cohesion, angle of friction, and unit
weight of soil were assumed to remainconstant for the bearing capacity analysis. However, in practice,
layered soil profilesare often encountered. In such instances, the failure surface at ultimate load mayextend
through two or more soil layers, making it difficult to determine the ultimatebearing capacity in layered soil.
This section features the procedure for estimatingthe bearing capacity for layered soil proposed by Meyerhof
and Hanna (1978) andMeyerhof (1974) in a c92f9soil.Figure 7.9 shows a shallow, continuous foundation
supported by a stronger soillayer, underlain by a weaker soil that extends to a large depth. For the two soil
layers,the physical parameters are as follows:

At ultimate load per unit area squd, the failure surface in soil will be as shown in the figure.If the depth H is
relatively small compared with the foundation width B, apunching shear failure will occur in the top soil
layer, followed by a general shearfailurein the bottom soil layer. This is shown in Figure 7.9a. However, if the
depthH is relatively large, then the failure surface will be completely located in the topsoil layer with no
influence from the weaker bottom layer, giving the maximumpossible value for the ultimate bearing capacity
qt. This is shown in Figure 7.9b.The ultimate bearing capacity for this problem, as shown in Figure 7.9a,
canbe given as

where
B 5 width of the foundation
Ca 5 adhesive force
Pp 5 passive force per unit length of the faces aa9 and bb9
qb 5 bearing capacity of the bottom soil layer
d9 5 inclination of the passive force Pp with the horizontal
Note that, in Eq. (7.14),

where c9a is the adhesion. Equation (7.14) can be simplified to the form

where Ks is the punching shear coefficient. Then,

The punching shear coefficient, Ks , is a function of q2yq1 and f91 , or, specifically,

Note that q1 and q2 are the ultimate bearing capacities of a continuous foundation of width B under vertical
load on the surfaces of homogeneous thick beds of upper and lower soil, or

where
Ncs1d, Ngs1d are the bearing capacity factors for friction angle f91 (Table 6.2)Ncs2d, Ngs2d are the bearing capacity
factors for friction angle f92 (Table 6.2)Observe that, for the top layer to be a stronger soil, q2yq1 should be
less than unity.The variation of Ks with q2yq1 and f91 is shown in Figure 7.10. The variationof c9ayc91 with
q2yq1 is shown in Figure 7.11. If the height H is relatively large, thenthe failure surface in soil will be
completely located in the stronger upper-soillayer (Figure 7.9b). For this case,

where Ncs1d, Nqs1d, and Ngs1d are the bearing capacity factors for f9 5 f91 (Table 6.2) and q 5 g1Df . Combining
Eqs. (7.17) and (7.20) yields

Here qt, determined from the properties of the upper layer (neglecting the influenceof the lower layer), is the
upper limit for the ultimate bearing capacity value calculatedusing Eq. (7.21). The depth factors are not
considered here.For rectangular foundations, the preceding equation can be extended to the form

in which
Fcss1d , Fqss1d , Fgss1d 5 shape factors with respect to top soil layer (Table 6.3)
Fcss2d , Fqss2d , Fgss2d 5 shape factors with respect to bottom soil layer (Table 6.3)
Special Cases
1. The top layer is strong sand and the weaker bottom layer is saturated soft clay sf2 5 0d. From Eqs. (7.22),
(7.23), and (7.24),