A Numerical Study on the Bearing Capacity of Neighboring Shallow Foundations on Sand

There are a few attempts attributed to the bearing capacity or the settlement of neighboring foundations. Such foundations are often frequently confronted in urban areas where the footings of adjacent buildings are inevitably placed close to each other. Once it happens, the interaction of the stress influenced zones of neighboring footings causes the failure to be initiated often later than that of a singular footing and this effect is sometimes called “blocking” (e.g. Stuart, 1962; Hataf and Naderi, 2014). This research is focused on the study of the bearing capacity of multiple shallow foundations. This problem represents the problem of the neighboring shallow foundations placed closely spaced over the ground surface. A numerical study by means of the finite element technique has been made and the results are first verified with an experimental study conducted by (Kumar and Bhoi, 2008) and then, a systematic analysis has been performed to present some design charts.