Influence of rotated anisotropy and spatial variability of undrained clay on bearing capacity of strip footings under eccentric loading

By incorporating the bedding orientation of soil, this paper numerically investigates the effects of soil’s anisotropic and heterogeneous behavior on strip footing under eccentric loading. The lower bound finite element limit analysis in association with second order cone programming is implemented to carry out the analysis by modeling cohesive soil as spatially random field. In order to generate the spatially random discretized soil domain, the well-known Cholesky decomposition technique is utilized. The probabilistic response is obtained by using the Monte Carlo simulation technique. The mean bearing capacity factor, failure probability of the footing for wide ranges of eccentricity, and soil heterogeneity are provided in design charts with respect to different bedding orientations. With the increase of eccentricity, the magnitude of the bearing capacity factor decreases in deterministic as well as probabilistic cases. At lower magnitudes of correlation lengths and eccentricity having different bedding orientations, significant variations are observed both in the magnitudes of mean bearing capacity factor and probability of failure; however, the variations are found to be minimized with the increase in the magnitudes of correlation lengths and eccentricity. Based on the obtained results, required factor of safety is evaluated for corresponding target probability by varying different bedding orientations.