Effects of Soil Test Variability in the Bearing Capacity of Shallow Foundations

This study presents the influence of variability for geotechnical parameters on the bearing capacity of shallow foundations. This was made from the ground variability and variability of the geotechnical tests. Finite element models of a continuous footing were used with an elastoplastic model with the soil geological history. Then, random parameters were generated from the selected model. The parameters were generated in two ways. Firstly, when the parameters are not correlated. This is done with the variability coefficients (COV) recorded by different researchers for each parameter. Secondly, the parameters are considered statistically correlated because they come from the same test. This case used the same COV for the parameters from the same test. The division of the parameters was for the soil shear strength parameters and the soil compression parameters. Subsequently, with the generated parameters, Monte Carlo simulations were performed. The above was possible by integrating these parameters in the finite element models. The results explain the influence of geotechnical parameters on the bearing capacity of a shallow foundation. In addition, the weight of different geotechnical parameters was shown in the quality function with which the tests were made. Regarding the tests, it shows which tests are more important for the bearing capacity. Then, it can be concluded which parameters and tests should be obtained more carefully because they have greater weight in the behavior of a shallow foundation. In addition, an analysis of the exceedance probability of the load capacity was performed.