HERIOT - WATT UNIVERSITY

School of Energy, Geoscience, Infrastructure and Society

Foundation Engineering
CLASS EXAMPLE

The figure below shows the subsoil profile across a site. 33m pad footings are to be used to
support the column loading at a depth of 1.00m below ground surface and centred over
Boreholes (BH) #1 and #2. Permanent water-table (W.T.) is located at a depth of 2.00m; the
load carried by the footing (inclusive of weight of pad) is 1950kN and their centre-to-centre
spacing is 12.0m. The bulk unit weight of the soil above the water-table is 16.7kN/m3.
Laboratory tests were carried out on representative samples of clay material from BH#1 and
BH#2. For BH#1, the average value of m v between horizons -4.00m and -8.00m was
0.5m2/MN; and between horizons -8.00m and -10.00m was 0.35m 2/MN. For BH#2, mv
between -2.00m and -8.00m was 0.55m2/MN, and between -8.00m and -10.00m the clay has
similar properties to that of BH#1 at these levels.
If the settlement is entirely due to the consolidation settlement of the clay, calculate, assuming
1-dimensional consolidation, the settlement under each footing and the angular distortion
between the footings. Comment on your answers.
BH#1
W.T

BH#2

+0.00

-2.00

Granular soil
-4.00
Normally consolidated clay

-10.00

-10.00

Granular soil
Note: Assume that the load is dispersed at an angle of 2:1 (i.e. 1 unit
horizontal, two units vertical).

SOLUTION