Mathematical Computations of Long-Term Settlement and Bearing Capacity of Soil Bases and Foundations near Vertical Excavation Pits

Abstract

The present paper describes and provides an analytical solution for the problem of evaluating the settlement and load-bearing capacity of weighty soil layers of limited thickness resting upon incompressible soil bases and an excavation pit wall, upon exposure of the foundation to a distributed load in the vicinity of a wall. The authors developed a method for determining the stressed state component in the reduced engineering problem based on the Ribere–Faylon trigonometric series, accounting for the nonlinear deformation properties of soils. To determine the settlement over time of the foundation near the pit, we used the A.Z. Ter-Martirosyan’s model to describe shear deformations and the Kelvin–Voigt model to describe volume deformations, assuming that ε·z(t) = ε·v(t) + ε·γ(t), according to the Hencky’s system of physical equations. The obtained solutions make it possible to assess the long-term deformation of soil bases and the long-term load-bearing capacity with respect to nonlinear rheological properties in a way that accurately corresponds to the actual performance of subsoils exposed to loading. The theoretical results were followed by numerical experiments to prove their validity.

Keywords

• stress–strain state
• Ribere-Faylon trigonometric series
• A.Z. Ter-Martirosyan’s rheological model
• Kelvin-Voigt rheological model
• long-term stability of the soil base
• creep curves