The Role of Geotechnical Monitoring at Design of Foundation Structures and their Verification – Part 1

Abstract

For a long time, design of the square foundations has not posed a problem in engineering practice. Foundations are designed on the basis of determining the bearing capacity of the subsoil, where irregularities in its determination oftentimes affect the efficiency (economy), while possible failures of bearing resistance of foundation soil are rare. More important factor is the resulting deformation of second limit state under consideration - settlement, relative settlement, tilting and excessive deformation. The current pressure on the cost reduction of design preparation and obtaining important data from geotechnical survey often results in many cases into adverse effects of settlement and differential settlement of foundations of the buildings. The question lies in a variety of analytical methods for assessing the service ability of limit states used in European countries as well as the underestimation of the proposal risks. Authors of the article want to document the fact that the most important influence on adequate and safe design is the most accurate determination of geotechnical parameters and the appropriate selection of the calculation method. For the purposes of explanation, Monte Carlo simulation technique was used to test a variety of geotechnical parameters, which will be presented in second part of article. If all construction processes are carried out successfully, rarely are the buildings evaluated once again. However, when the opportunity to participate in the stage of engineering survey and collection of geotechnical parameters as well as the control of the construction process by tools of geotechnical monitoring presents itself, it is valuable to perform the analysis of the entire process for pointing out hidden risks.

The Role of Geotechnical Monitoring at Design of Foundation Structures and their Verification – Part 2

“…Vol. 0, Issue 0, repeated [2,3]. Building was successfully constructed and geotechnical monitoring confirmed vertical movements in desirable limits.…”

“…In our practical case, characteristic values of soil deformation properties (gravely sediments) were estimated through dynamic penetration tests and directly measured on the foundation level by static plate load tests [2].…”

“…The reliability index β is associated with the probability of failure P F and can be expressed by several dependencies according to the implemented statistical method and referenced period [20][21][22]. In the case of using the Gaussian cumulative probability function, their dependence is expressed by equation (2). The tabular values of the probability of failure and the probability index are given in the Table 5.…”

“…Parametric variations of input dataThe construction site for the considered building has a geological origin in Paleogene, where sedimentary rocks are represented by the alternation of sandstones and predominant claystones, completely weathered to clay at the top part. The Paleogene bedrock is covered by a massive accumulation of gravel terrace sediments of the Váh River, which have been verified to a depth of 20 -21 m. The terrace is formed by gravel with fine soil (G-F), covered by Quaternary sandy clays (CS) or low or medium plasticity clays (CL, CI)[2,3].The simple cross section of selected rectangular footing E12 together with 3D finite element model (FEM) parametric model are shown in Fig.1. For definition of soil layers' parameters, Mohr-Coulomb constitutive model was selected with respect to the available input parameters.…”

Soil-Structure Interaction: Comparative Review of International Codes and Other Literature with Indian Seismic Code

“…The influence of SSI is studied using a direct approach, namely finite element analysis. Drusa, M. et al [5] investigated geotechnical parameters and acceptable solutions to get a suitable and safe design. The Monte Carlo simulation approach is identified to evaluate geotechnical parameters.…”