Ultimate bearing capacity of strip footing resting on rock mass using adaptive finite element method

An essential requirement during the design of structures is a rational assessment of the ultimate bearing capacity of the footing resting on rock mass (qu). The qu is influenced by several parameters, and the simultaneous consideration of all such factors during the assessment of ultimate bearing capacity is a cumbersome process. Considering that the available literature lacks in providing the influence of various parameters of the rock mass on qu, an attempt has been made in this study to evaluate qu of a strip footing resting on a rock mass, which was presumed to follow the latest form of Hoek-Brown failure criterion using finite element modeling. The results obtained in this study were validated with the previous findings of the bearing capacity factors (Nσ0) for a footing resting on weightless rock mass. A comprehensive study has been performed to get an insight into the factors affecting the qu of a footing resting over the rock mass by varying the Geological Strength Index (GSI) ranging from 10 to 100, as well as the disturbance factor (D) at 0 and 1, together with the embedment depth of the footing (Df). The qu is determined by the load-settlement response obtained from numerical simulations and the observed potential failure planes from the simulations are analyzed and discussed. The results showed that the qu was greatly influenced by the GSI of the rock mass and the effect of D reduces with higher values of GSI. The study recommends that the qu of a poor mass can be increased by placing the footing at a deeper depth (Df). © 2023 King Saud University