Shallow Foundations Behavior Based on Stress Level Concept by the ZEL Method

The Zero Extension Lines theory, based on the solution of soil plasticity equations along the ZEL directions, has wide applications in soil mechanics. It has been known that soil behavior and shear strength parameters are stress level dependent. In fact, a dense soil presenting a dilative behavior under low stress levels may show a contractive behavior under higher levels of stress. By the other hand, foundation size has a significant effect on the level of imposed stress on subsoil elements. In this work, the ZEL method is employed to consider the stress level dependency of soil strength in the bearing capacity and load-displacement behavior computation of foundations by a developed computer code in MATLAB. This numerical model has been then compared with experimental tests and with other methods.

Keywords:

ZEL Method , Bearing Capacity , Stress-Level , Soil Plasticity , Nonlinearity