• Journal of the Korea institute for structural maintenance and inspection
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• v.15 no.1
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• pp.198-208
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• 2011

When a structure which has relatively low load constructs on soft clay, the bearing capacity of the ground will be improved by sand overlying clay. In this condition, verifying the bearing capacity is difficult from the P.B.T etcetera in the in-situ. So, it is needed to estimate precise bearing capacity in the design process. In this study, 2-dimensional chamber tests and FEM analyses are conducted to evaluate behavior of bearing capacity for shallow foundations on a sand overlying clay. Because depth ratio H/B and bearing capacity ratio $q_c/q_s$ are selected as main factors, height of a sand, undrained shear strength of a clay and width of a loading are designated as variables. Results from chamber tests are very similar with those of FEM analyses. And it shows that punching shear mechanism is more suitable than the equation of Okamura et al.(1998). To make continual application of load spread mechanism, the equivalent load spread angle is proposed for H/B and $q_c/q_s$. Also, the linear regression equation of critical depth ratio Hf is suggested for $q_c/q_s$.