Apurba Tribedi is a Senior Director at Bentley Systems Inc., Anaheim, CA. (apurba.tribedi@bentley.com)
In Part 1 (STRUCTURE, November 2018) of this 2-part series, the definition of the modulus of subgrade reaction was presented and the current state of design with regard to its use was discussed. That article further described some potential shortcomings of the simplified theory of subgrade reaction. This article continues to describe the settlement profile convergence method and how it can be implemented into a new design. …
Soil-Structure-Interaction (SSI) is a broad and interesting topic. Because of its complexity and unpredictability, engineers often require the use of sophisticated analysis techniques, including specialized software. …
Probably the most widely used value in a soil report is soil bearing capacity. The obvious reason is that basic examples given in most text books almost always use bearing capacity to calculate the plan dimension of a footing. Because of simplicity and ease of use, this method is still the fundamental soil parameter for foundation design. However, that simplicity assumes the footing will behave as a rigid body. That particular assumption works well in practice for small and single column footings. But for large and multi column foundations, most engineers prefer flexible analysis. …