Shallow foundation settlement using a hardening soil model for spatially variable soil

In the study, a probabilistic analysis of foundation settlement is performed for spatially variable soil. The impact of elasticity modulus spatial variability is examined on the resulting foundation settlement probability distribution characteristics. For characterising random field that is used for describing the elasticity modulus variability structure, fluctuation scales are used. Both, isotropic and anisotropic correlation structures were assumed in the analysed examples, in the case of anisotropic correlation structure greater horizontal fluctuation scales are assumed in comparison with the vertical ones. The random finite element method (RFEM) was used in the study in combination with an advanced material model (Hardening Soil Model). The study propose a method that may improve our understanding of the behaviour of more advanced soil models than the Coulomb Mohr model in probabilistic applications. This is important direction because so far, RFEM has been used sporadically with advanced soil models such as Hardening Soil model. Together with elasticity modulus, also the shear strength spatial variability on settlement was investigated and discussed in the study. The proposed approach connects commercial software (ZSoil) with the authors own procedures implemented in MATLAB in a framework of Monte Carlo method to obtain settlement values and their spatial distribution.

Keywords: RFEM, random field, spatial variability, Monte Carlo.