Assessment of the Bearing Capacity of Foundations on Rock Masses Subjected to Seismic and Seepage Loads

Rubén Galindo, Ana Alencar, Nihat Sinan Isik and Claudio Olalla Marañón
Additional contact information
Rubén Galindo: Departamento de Ingeniería y Morfología del Terreno, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain
Ana Alencar: Departamento de Ingeniería y Morfología del Terreno, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain
Nihat Sinan Isik: Department of Civil Engineering, Faculty of Technology, Gazi University, 06560 Ankara, Turkey
Claudio Olalla Marañón: Departamento de Ingeniería y Morfología del Terreno, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, 28040 Madrid, Spain

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 23, 1-21

Abstract: It is usual to adopt the seismic force acting as an additional body force, employing the pseudo-static hypothesis, when considering earthquakes in the estimation of the bearing capacity of foundations. A similar approach in seepage studies can be applied for the pore pressure’s consideration as an external force. In the present study, the bearing capacity of shallow foundations on rock masses considering the presence of the pseudo-static load was developed by applying an analytical solution for the Modified Hoek and Brown failure criterion. Calculations were performed adopting various inclinations of the load and the slope on the edge of the foundation, as well as different values of the vertical and horizontal components of the pseudo-static load. The results are presented in the form of charts to allow an affordable and immediate practical application for footing problems in the event of seismic loads or seepages. Finally, and to validate the analytical solution presented, a numerical study was developed applying the finite difference method to estimate the bearing capacity of a shallow foundation on a rock mass considering the presence of an additional horizontal force that could be caused by an earthquake or a seepage.

Keywords: Hoek–Brown criterion; seismic load; seepage; analytical method; pseudo-static load; finite difference method (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/23/10063/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/23/10063/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:23:p:10063-:d:454959

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().