Climate‐adaptive design approach for embedded footing under extreme climate event

Abstract

Recent records indicate that extreme climate events adversely affect the performance of earthen structures and superstructures supported on them by varying the strength and deformation properties of subsurface soil. To better design such structures, the effects of climate events must be well understood, and the conventional design procedures must be improved by incorporating the knowledge of climatology in geotechnical engineering. In this study, a new climate‐adaptive design method is developed to investigate the impact of extreme climate events on the safety and serviceability performances of embedded footing through incorporating the site‐specific hydrological loads such as precipitation, evapotranspiration, and water table depth to geotechnical parameters. The proposed method was applied to two arid climate sites in the United States, Austin, TX, and Albuquerque, NM. The site‐specific extreme hydrological cycle was determined based on historical records. The mathematical model was solved for temporal and spatial variations of the degree of saturation and matric suction considering the hydrological loads as the upper and lower boundary conditions, respectively. The results showed that the worst performance (higher elastic settlement and lower ultimate bearing capacity) was observed during the period when the degree of saturation in the influence zone was the highest. The critical design parameters including ultimate bearing capacity and settlement obtained from the proposed method increased by 28% and 35%, respectively, in Austin, compared to those calculated from conventional approaches where the soil is assumed to be fully saturated. In Albuquerque, the increase in ultimate bearing capacity and settlement were 61% and 45%, respectively.