On the Soil-Structure Interaction of Surface Strip Footings at Ultimate Limit State

Theoretical methods for estimating the bearing capacity of surface strip footings usually do not consider soil-structure interaction. A few publications deal with the subject, but all of these either do not apply rigorous methods or do not consider the general case of cohesive soils with internal friction. In the first part of this contribution, the general solution of the bearing capacity of surface strip footings with limited flexural resistance and subjected to a centered vertical load is derived, on the basis of the upper bound theorem of the limit analysis method. The theoretical results are presented by fundamental dimensionless parameters. In the second part a criterion for the assessment of the relevance of the proposed failure mechanism is presented, showing that the problem of bearing capacity of strip footings of limited resistance is not yet completely clarified.