Bearing Capacity of Isolated Square Skirted Foundation on Cohesionless Soil: An Experimental and Analytical Study

Abstract

Skirted foundations are being used increasingly for foundations of offshore structures, the popular name of that foundations is bucket foundations. The provision of skirts on the periphery of shallow foundation will result in increasing confinement of soil and hence improvement in state of stress as well as soil structure interaction. The present paper describes study of model square skirted foundation for axial loads in cohesionless soils. The parameters like aspect ratio of skirt (skirt length), skirt angle α, depth of placement of foundation are considered in experiments and compared with model plane footing without skirts. Bearing capacity of the model foundations were carried out by stress controlled plate load test. Results shows considerable increase in bearing capacity because of provision of skirts, hence skirted foundations is suitable for on shore structures also. The governing mechanism for the behaviour of skirted foundations is explained.