Print Email Facebook Twitter Finite Element analysis of soft boundary effects on the behaviour of shallow foundations Title Finite Element analysis of soft boundary effects on the behaviour of shallow foundations Author Azua Gonzalez, Carlos (TU Delft Civil Engineering and Geosciences; TU Delft Geoscience and Engineering) Pozo Andrade, Carlos (TU Delft Civil Engineering and Geosciences; TU Delft Geoscience and Engineering) Askarinejad, Amin (TU Delft Civil Engineering and Geosciences; TU Delft Geoscience and Engineering) Contributor Askarinejad, Amin (mentor) Broere, Wout (graduation committee) Reinders, Kristina (graduation committee) de las Heras, Yolanda (graduation committee) Degree granting institution Delft University of Technology Programme Geo-Engineering Project Additional thesis Date 2017-09-29 Abstract The response of a shallow foundation has been investigated by numerical simulations in a series of 1g small scale tests using the Finite Element Method. In this numerical study, special attention has been given to the influence of soft boundaries as a measure to counteract boundary effects, since limitations of space were present in the containers used for the experiments. These experiments were carried out on rigid shallow foundations on sand using strongboxes, which are routinely used in the small beam centrifuge at Delft University of Technology. Two soil constitutive laws were used: 1) the well-known linear elastic perfectly plastic model, and 2) a hypoplastic model. Soft boundaries have been modelled as a continuum, while soil-soft boundary interaction has been addressed by zero thickness interface elements. Model parameters have been back-figured from free field experiments, since boundary effects were considered negligible in these kinds of experiments. Finally, comparisons between numerical and experimental data showed hypoplasticity performed better than the elasto-plastic model to reproduce some aspects of mechanical boundary effects. Subject Finite Element MethodShallow foundationsBoundary effectsHypoplasticity model To reference this document use: http://resolver.tudelft.nl/uuid:fdd1189c-d06b-430d-93f7-99ced904bb8b Embargo date 2019-09-30 Part of collection Student theses Document type student report Rights © 2017 Carlos Azua Gonzalez, Carlos Pozo Andrade, Amin Askarinejad Files PDF Additional_thesis_report_ ... _style.pdf 1.81 MB Close viewer /islandora/object/uuid:fdd1189c-d06b-430d-93f7-99ced904bb8b/datastream/OBJ/view