Chapter-3

BEARING CAPACITY OF SHALLOW FOUNDATIONS

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• Design of foundations mainly consists of two general steps:
Geotechnical design and Structural design.
• The main requirements in the geotechnical design of
foundations are:
– The pressure on the soil should not exceed the bearing
capacity of the soil.
– The settlement of the structure should be within the
permissible limits.
• Any foundation should be placed at a depth where the soil stratum is
adequate from the point of view of bearing capacity and settlement
criteria.
• Placed below the zone of volume change
• Below the deepest erosion or scour level. eg in bridge,etc
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 Contact Pressure
• Is the actual pressure transmitted from the foundation to
the soil
• The pressure, by way of reaction, exerted by the soil on the
underside of the footing or foundation
• A uniformly loaded foundation will transmit a uniform
contact pressure to the soil, if the foundation is perfectly
‘flexible’ otherwise for rigid foundation it is non uniform

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The following parameters are required as input
values in a foundation design:
• Loads from superstructure.
• Factor of safety for bearing capacity
• Required total settlement and differential settlement.
• Subsoil conditions, such as density, cohesion,
internal friction angle, corrosion potential, and
• depth to groundwater table

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A foundation design should determine the
following:
• Foundation type: deep or shallow foundation.
• Material: steel, timber, concrete, or masonry.
• Embedment depth.
• Dimensions.
• Bearing capacity and factor of safety
• Total and differential settlements.
• Reinforcement, if using reinforced concrete, and
structural stability.

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Bearing capacity of shallow foundations
• Bearing capacity is the capability of the soil beneath a
foundation to support a superstructure load.
• The maximum load-bearing capability of the soil, that is the
maximum stress the soil can carry without failure, is called
ultimate bearing capacity, qult
• Determination of ultimate bearing capacity depends on the
foundation shape (square, rectangular, circular), size,
embedment depth, subsoil conditions, and the failure mode.
• In foundation design, a global factor of safety for bearing
capacity is commonly used to account for the
approximation of design methodologies and uncertainty of
the subsoil parameters and to provide sufficient safety
margin. 6
• Gross ultimate bearing capacity qult is the minimum value of
the gross effective contact pressure at which the supporting
material fails in shear.
• Net ultimate bearing capacity net qult is the minimum value
of the excess effective contact pressure at which the supporting
material fails in shear, expressed as
• Net safe bearing capacity, net qs is the net ultimate bearing
capacity divided by a suitable safety factor SF
• Therefore, the net bearing capacity is used to compare with the
maximum stress due to the superstructure.
• Note that the σ’o term is not divided by the safety factor and
may not be logical to do so because its value is usually available
in full. However, some authors define the gross safe as the gross
ultimate bearing capacity divided by a suitable safety factor,
expressed as:
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 Failure modes of shallow foundations
There are three commonly identified modes of the bearing capacity failure,
depending on the soil’s density

Fig. Shallow foundation failure modes. (a) General shear failure, (b) local shear failure, (c) punching shear failure.
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General shear failure:
• General shear failure occurs in dense soil . A complete shear
failure surface develops from a corner of the foundation and
extends to the ground surface; as the foundation overturns to one
side, the soil on the other side is pushed up at the ground surface.
General shear failure occurs suddenly and is the most
catastrophic to the structure. It is the most common failure mode.
Local shear failure:
• Local shear failure occurs in medium dense soil. The shear failure
surface develops from a corner of the foundation and extends
locally to the adjacent area beneath or beside the foundation. The
failure surface does not extend to the ground surface. As the
foundation overturns to one side, a small bulge of the ground
surface occurs on the opposite side of the foundation. Sudden
failure does not occur; instead, the foundation gradually settles
and tilts in the subsoil. 9
Punching shear failure:
• Punching shear failure occurs in loose soil. The shear failure surface
only develops beneath the foundation. Little or no bulging occurs at
the ground surface. The foundation settles gradually into the ground.
Overturning of the foundation does not occur in punching failure
mode; however, the structure no longer meets the service requirement
due to excessive settlement.
• In practical foundation design, it is only necessary to analyze the
bearing capacity for the general failure mode; settlement is then
determined to verify that the foundation will not settle excessively.
These settlement analyses implicitly protect against local and
punching shear failures

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Bearing Capacity Equations
• Various analytical methods have been established so that the
problem of a two-dimensional solution for a strip footing is
extended to a solution of three-dimensional problem.
• Terzaghi – best for very cohesive soils where D/B ≤ 1 or for a
quick estimate of qult to compare with other methods.
• Do not use for footings with moments and/or horizontal forces
or for tilted bases and/or sloping ground.
• Hansen, Meyerhof, Vesic – best for any situation that applies,
depending on user preference or familiarity with a particular
method.

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Effect of groundwater on bearing capacity
• If the groundwater table is near the ground surface, it may
affect the ultimate bearing capacity. When considering the
effect of the groundwater, the ultimate bearing capacity
Equations still apply, and the bearing capacity factors still
follow the same approach as described earlier.
• The only changes are the effective stress, q, and the unit
weight, 𝛾, in these equations, depending on the elevation of
the groundwater table.
Case I: The groundwater table is at or above the bottom of
the foundation. The effective stress at the bottom of the
foundation is as follows:

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If the soil beneath the foundation is fully saturated, use 𝛾′ to
replace 𝛾 . The submerged unit weight is: 𝛾′ = 𝛾sat− 𝛾w
where: 𝛾w = unit weight of water.

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Case II: The groundwater table is below the bottom of the
foundation, and Df ≤ Dw ≤ Df + B,
When the groundwater table is not far below the foundation,
there is still some effect on the ultimate bearing capacity.
The effective stress at the bottom of the foundation still
follows Equation : q = 𝛾Df ≤ Dw
But the unit weight the remaining bearing equations should
use a weighted average:

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Case III: The groundwater table is below the bottom of the
foundation, and D + B, when the groundwater table is far
below the foundation, i.e., D+ B,
It is assumed that the groundwater does not affect the bearing
capacity. Therefore, no revision is made to the bearing capacity

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Bearing capacity of eccentrically loaded foundation
A footing may be subjected to eccentric loading and such
condition leads to a reduction in bearing capacity. The eccentric
load is equivalent to a concentric load plus a rotational moment.
The estimate of ultimate bearing capacity for footings with
eccentricity, using the general bearing capacity equations, may be
obtained by the following methods
The effective area method:
(a) Determine the effective footing dimensions B’ and L’ using

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(b) Use the effective footing dimensions B’ and L’ in
computing the shape factors.
(c) Use actual B and L dimensions in computing the depth
factors.
(d) Use a general bearing capacity equation to obtain qult
The ultimate load that the foundation can support is

The contact pressure at any point beneath the footing

can be shown as:

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 Examples
1, A strip footing 3.5 m wide is to be placed 3 m below
ground surface on sandy clay soil having γ =20.5 kN/m3.
From laboratory test C = 23 kPa and φ = 10°. Find the gross
ultimate load per meter run of foundation immediately after
construction. Consider bearing capacity failure only. Use
Terzaghi bearing capacity equation.

gross qult = 23 x 9.6 x 1 + 20.5 x 3 x 2.7 + 0.5 x 20.5 x 3.5 x 1.2 x 1

= 429.9 kPa
Gross ultimate load = 429.9 x B = 429.9 x 3.5 = 1504.6 kN/m run 20
2,
A strip footing is to be designed to carry a gross foundation load
equals 800 kN/m run at a depth of 0.7 m in a soil with shear
strength parameters are c = 0 and Ø = 40 . Assume that the water
table exists at the foundation level. The soil unit weights above and
below the water table are 17 and 20 kN/m3, respectively. Using
Terzaghi bearing capacity equation with a safety factor of three,
considering shear failure only, determine the width of the footing.

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