In present investigation attempt has been made to study the bearing capacity and settlement
characteristics of footings subjected to central vertical load and resting on layered soil with
the help of model tests and with the application of finite e
lement method (FEM) to
calculate bearing capacity of a strip footing on one-layer and two-layer soil (Sand and
Clay). To investigate the effect of various parameters on soil bearing Capacity a
commercial finite element software, PLAXIS, has been used. Soil profile contains two soil
types including sand and clay. Soil behavior is represented by the elasto-plastic Mohrcoulomb
(MC) -model. For a one-layer case, the bearing capacity also is calculated which
has a good agreement with theoretical equations. For a layered soil, soft-over strong soil,
parametric study was carried out. It is concluded that the bearing capacity of footing
decreases as the height of clayey soil increases whilst the displacement under footing
increases. There is a critical depth where the stronger bottom layer does not affect ultimate
bearing capacity and failure mechanism of footing.
