Reliability analysis-based safety factor for stability of footings on frictional soils

The design of foundations based on a deterministic approach may not be safe and reliable occasionally, since soils sometimes show considerable spatial variability, and thus, significant uncertainties in turn affect the estimation of footing bearing capacity. The design of footing on cohesionless stratums on the basis of reliability analysis has not received much attention. This paper performs two-dimensional random finite difference analyses of shallow strip footings on a spatially variable frictional soil considering correlation structure. Friction angle (o) is considered as a log-normally distributed random variable and Monte Carlo Simulation is then performed to determine the statistical response based on the random fields. A new approach reliability-based safety factor is defined based on various reliability levels by considering the coefficient of variation of o and correlation length in both the horizontal and vertical directions. The comparison of the probabilistic safety factor and the conventional one illustrates the limitations of the deterministic safety factor and provides insight into how the heterogeneity of soils properties affects the required safety factor. Results show that the conventional safety factor of 3 can be conservative in some cases, especially for soil with low values of mean o and COVo.