Foundations

Abstract

Foundation engineering emerged as a discipline of modern engineering science in 1940s.Design and analysis as well as practice of foundation engineering have made a signiˆcant progress up to the present time.This paper gives an overview of the development of foundation engineering, mainly referring to papers published in Soils and Foundations.The paper describes the theoretical development of foundation analysis and a recent increasing trend of foundation practice of adopting various hybrid foundations.The paper points out the importance of environmental considerations in foundation design and practice, including low noise and vibration reduction, reuse of existing foundations and use of natural energy through foundation elements.The paper then provides authors'views of future directions in foundation studies and practice.