Settlement and Bearing Capacity of Rectangular Footing in Reliance on the Pre-Overburden Pressure of Soil Foundation

This article presents a solution for the quantitative evaluation of the stress–strain state (SSS) and the bearing capacity of rectangular foundations, factoring in the unit weight of the soil mass and different values of pre-overburden pressure (POP). In order to assess the SSS of the soil subgrade below a rigid rectangular footing under a uniformly distributed load, the authors applied the Boussinesq basic solution for an elastic half-space subjected to a vertical point load on its surface. As a result, the formulas for vertical stress, mean stress, shear strain, and volumetric strain for any point in Cartesian coordinates (x, y, z) and foundation settlement were determined. Additionally, the application of Hencky’s system of physical equations, with non-linear dependencies between mean stress and volumetric strain as well as deviator stress and shear strain, along with the experimental curves, depicts the relationships between bulk modulus and volume stress, and shear modulus and shear stress. The authors point out the non-linear behavior of the subgrade soil and propose a method for estimating the bearing capacity of a rigid rectangular foundation.