The 8th Symposium on Advances in Science and Technology (8thSASTech), Mashhad, Iran. 8thSASTech.khi.ac.

ir

Determination of seismic bearing capacity of shallow strip footings on

slopes

Mahmoud Ghazavi1, Armin Salmani Mahali2

1-Associate Professor, Civil Engineering Department, K. N. Toosi. University of
Technology, Tehran, Iran, ghazavi_ma@kntu.ac.ir
2- Civil Engineering Department. Islamic Azad University, Arak Branch, Arak ,
rminsm@gmail.com

Abstract
The seismic bearing capacity for strip footings near slopes are the aim of this paper. For this purpose,
a limit equilibrium based method is used. The seismic force is considered as pseudo-static forces
acting on both footing and soil is determined. To obtain the ultimate bearing capacity, an imaginary
retaining wall is assumed to pass the footing wedge and the lateral earth pressure exerted on the wall
in active and passive conditions are determined. The bearing capacity factors are computed for
various values of soil friction angle, seismic acceleration coefficients in horizontal and vertical
directions, ground inclination, distance of the foundation from the slope edge. The effects of various
parameters on seismic bearing capacity factors have been studied. The results obtained from the
present method are compared with other available methods.
Key words: Limit equilibrium, seismic bearing capacity, strip footings, lateral earth pressure

The 8th Symposium on Advances in Science and Technology (8thSASTech), Mashhad, Iran. 8thSASTech.khi.ac.ir

1. Introduction
The determination of bearing capacity of shallow foundations basically is principle in
geotechnical engineering. Limited studies have been carried out for estimating the seismic
bearing capacity of strip footings near slopes. Most of analyses were carried out for static
situation.
Some researchers including Sarma and Iossifelis (1990), Budhu and Al-Karni (1993),
Richards et al. (1993), Dormieux and Pecker (1995), Paolucci and Pecker (1997), Soubra
(1997, 1999), Kumar and Rao (2002), Kumar (2003), and Choudhury and Subba Rao (2005)
have studied the seismic bearing capacity of shallow footings for the horizontal ground.
However, for sloping ground, data are very limited. Sawada et al. (1994), Sarma (1999) and
Askari and Farzaneh (2003) have presented solutions for seismic bearing capacity of shallow
foundations near sloping ground. Recently, Choundhury and Rao (2006) carried out the
analysis for seismic bearing capacity factors of footings construced on slopes. It is noted that
this method was initially developed by Richards et al. (1993) for footings on homogeneous
granular soil and extended to two layered granular soil by Ghazavi and Eghbali (2008), and
Ghazavi and Salmani (2012) for frictional-cohesive soil. Salmani and Ghazavi (2013) have
extended the imaginary retaining wall method for foundation base inclination.
This paper presents a simple method for determination of the seismic bearing capacity of strip
footings near the slope edge on granular soils. For this purpose, an imaginary retaining wall is
assumed the vertical direction along the edge of the footing (Fig. 1). The lateral earth
pressures exerted on the wall in active and passive conditions are determined. The
conventional bearing capacity factors are extracted and then the bearing capacity equation is
derived.

Fig. 1. Failure mechanism and wedges assumed in present model

2. Model Definition
Meyerhof (1957) proposed a method for determination of bearing capacity on the top of
slope. The ultimate bearing capacity of the foundation can be expressed by Eq. (1) and
presented design chart.

The 8th Symposium on Advances in Science and Technology (8thSASTech), Mashhad, Iran. 8thSASTech.khi.ac.ir

where
factors are functions of the soil friction angle,
depth, B is the footing width, and is the soil unit weight.

D is the footing

3. Limit equilibrium analysis

A useful simplification for determination the ultimate bearing capacity of shallow strip
footing is to imagine a retaining wall and with equal the active and passive forces, as shown
in Fig. 2. For this purpose, as shown in Fig. 1, we assume AEFC section as an equivalent
surcharge.

Fig. 2. Failure surfaces and effective forces on slip wedge in limit equilibrium condition

Pseudo-static seismic forces are considered along with other static force. Also isotropic
granular soil with equivalent surcharge is assumed in the analysis. The seismic acceleration
coefficients are denoted as k h and kv in the horizontal and vertical directions, respectively.
Note that in Fig. 2:
ae = Angle of slip surface in active zone.
pe = Angle of slip surface in passive zone.
= friction angle along surface between active and passive zone.
Pa, Pp= active and passive force.
: ground inclination angle.
b: distance between foundation from the slope crest.
The value of ae and pe may be given by:
*

[
[

[
*

][
]]
+

[
[

][
]

The equivalent surcharge is given by:

The 8th Symposium on Advances in Science and Technology (8thSASTech), Mashhad, Iran. 8thSASTech.khi.ac.ir

: seismic inertia angle caused by the earthquake.

The seismic inertia angle is given by:
In Eq. (3):

where a h, av = seismic accelerations in horizontal and vertical directions, respectively.

g= acceleration of gravity
h= failure wedge
The active and passive earth forces according to the Mononobe-Okabe earth pressure theory
are given by:
(

where:
kae , kpe =coefficient of active and passive pressure in seismic condition.
The coefficient of active and passive pressures are respectively given by:

The 8th Symposium on Advances in Science and Technology (8thSASTech), Mashhad, Iran. 8thSASTech.khi.ac.ir

The total active thrust and passive force are determined using:

The horizontal components of the total active and passive thrust are determined respectively
using:

The ultimate bearing capacity may be obtained by combing Eqs. (25) and (26). A comparison
with Eq. (1) leads to:
(

The bering capacity factors may be obtained from Eq. (27) as:
(

The shape of the failure surface is very simple, thus a relatively acceptable estimation of the
bearing capacity depends on the value of . In this paper, we use
4. Results
In this section, results of the above analyses are presented. Figs. 3 and 4 give the values of
seismic bearing capacity factors for various k h and kv values with a particular D and . As
seen, seismic bearing capacity factors decrease with increasing the horizontal and vertical
seismic acceleration coefficients.

seismic bearing capacity factors

The 8th Symposium on Advances in Science and Technology (8thSASTech), Mashhad, Iran. 8thSASTech.khi.ac.ir

120
100
Nqe
Ne

80
60
40
20
0
0

0.1

0.2

0.3

kh

Fig3. Variation of seismic bearing capacity factors with k h

seismic bearing capacity factors

(=40o, b=0.5 m, D=1 m, B=1 m, =10o, kv=0)

70
60
50

40
30
20

Nqe
Ne

10
0

0.1

0.2

0.3

kv

Fig4. Variation of seismic bearing capacity factors with k v

(=40o, b=0.5 m, D=1 m, B=1 m, =10o, k h=0.1)

Figs. 3 and 4 show the effect of earthquake acceleration coefficients in horizontal and vertical
directions on seismic bearing capacity factors. As observed, with increasing k h and kv , Nqe
and N e decrease. kh values are more effective in decreasing the seismic bearing capacity
coefficient than those of kv.

The 8th Symposium on Advances in Science and Technology (8thSASTech), Mashhad, Iran. 8thSASTech.khi.ac.ir

500

qult(kPa)

400
300

kh=0,kv=0
kh=0.3,kv=0

200

kh=0.1,kv=0

100
0
0

5.4

5.5

b/B

Fig5. Effect of k h on distance greater than that the slope does not affect on bearing capacity
( =16kN/m3, =30o, B=1m, D=1m, =10 o)
500

qult(kPa)

400
300
200
kh=0.1,kv=0
kh=0.1,kv=0.1

100
0
0

5.4

5.5

b/B

Fig6. Effect of kv on distance greater than that the slope does not affect on bearing capacity
( =16kN/m3, =30o, B=1m, D=1m, =10 o)
Figures 5 and 6 shows variation of seismic bearing capacity with distance greater than a
specific edge form slope edge, no more reduction in ultilmate bearing capacity occurs for
different value of kh and kv. It can be concluded that with increasing k h, the slope have less
impact on bearing capacity. For example, in the static case in 6m distance, slope does not
affect the bearing capacity, for k h = 0.1, this distance is reduced to 5.5m and for the case k h =
0.3 this distance is 5m.

5. Verification
For validation of the developed method, data presented by Chen Chang-Fu et al. (2007) are
selected for comparison with those obtained from the developed method. Figs. 7 to 10 show
this comparison. As seen, in all figures, there is generally good agreement between two
methods.

The 8th Symposium on Advances in Science and Technology (8thSASTech), Mashhad, Iran. 8thSASTech.khi.ac.ir

60

50

Present Method
Chen Chang-Fu(2007)

Nqe

40
30
20
10
0
20

25

30

35

40

(deg)

Fig7. Variation of Nqe with soil friction angle

) kh=kv=0, b=0.5 m, D=0, B=2 m,(
30

Present Method
Chen Chang-Fu(2007)

25
Nqe

20
15
10
5

0
25

30

35

40

(deg)

Fig8. Variation of Nqe with soil friction angle

Ne

) kh=kv=0.2, b=0.5 m, D=0, B=2 m,(

80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0

Present Method
Chen Chang-fu(2007)

20

25

30

35

(deg)

Fig9. Variation of Ne with soil friction angle

) kh=kv=0, b=0.5 m, D=0, B=2 m,(

40

Ne

The 8th Symposium on Advances in Science and Technology (8thSASTech), Mashhad, Iran. 8thSASTech.khi.ac.ir

35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0

Present Method
Chen Chang-Fu(2007)

25

30

35

40

(deg)

Fig10. Variation of Ne with soil friction angle

) kh=kv=0.2, b=0.5 m, D=0, B=2 m,(
6. Conclusions
A pseudo-static approach for the seismic forces and with the assumption the lateral earth
pressure theory determined from the well known Mononobe-Okabe method in conjunction
with simple slip surface has been used to determine the total lateral active and passive thrusts
exerted on virtual retaining wall passing vertically through the edge of the footing. The
seismic bearing capacity of strip footing on the top of slope on granular soils was derived.
The presented method predicts reasonable results compared with an available solution in the
literature. The results show that with increasing the horizontal and vertical seismic
acceleration components, the seismic bearing capacity factors decrease drastically, as
expected..
References
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The 8th Symposium on Advances in Science and Technology (8thSASTech), Mashhad, Iran. 8thSASTech.khi.ac.ir

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