STUDYING THE BEHAVIOR OF STRIP FOUNDATION RESTED ON THE KEROSENE OIL AND GASOIL CONTAMINATED SAND SLOPES

In recent years, due to the increasing use of hydrocarbons by humans, soil contamination has become a concern in environmental and geotechnical engineering fields. In the other words, by the growth and development of industries, the number of factories, complexes, refineries and oil product transportation lines around cities increases. Hence, in addition to the environmental concerns caused by the leakage and entrance of pollutions into groundwater and their side effects, the soil geotechnical characteristics and bearing capacity of soils contaminated by oil contaminations are subject to change. Accordingly, in the oil-rich regions of the world, a great deal of research is devoted to the study of soil refinement, bearing capacity and instability caused by soil contamination. A numerically study was undertaken to achieve an accurate and realistic response. As a review of the previous research indicated, in recent decades, most studies have focused on the geotechnical properties of contaminated soils and there is only a limited amount of information about the bearing capacity and the foundation settlement behavior. Thus the purpose of this paper is to determine the behavior of strip footings rested on the gasoil and kerosene-contaminated sand slope. After determining the bearing capacity, the effect of petroleum products, including gas oil and kerosene oil, on the bearing capacity of strip footings adjacent to sand slopes was investigated. In this study, variables such as the type and percentage of contamination, slope angle, footing distance to slope crest and the thickness of the contaminated layer have been investigated. The results show that a thicker contaminated layer and a greater degree of contamination and soil slope will decrease the bearing capacity of the strip footing. Furthermore by increasing the footing distance to slope crest, the bearing capacity of strip foundation is increased. The numerical results have been verified for both the load-settlement diagram and the ultimate bearing capacity of the footing, by recent experimental results.