Error Analysis of Superposition Method in Bearing Capacity Calculation

Duo to non-linearity of ground material’s behavior, the error will be introduced using traditional superposition method to calculate bearing capacity. The main cause of superposition error is that bearing capacity factors based on failure mechanism of weightless soil is not applicable for weight soil. Based on slip line method, variation trend of error introduced by superposition method is investigated. The investigation of this paper showed that, bearing capacity calculated by traditional superposition method is conservative, and the error increased with increasing of internal fractional angle.