Bearing capacity of strip footings with horizontal confinement

For a strip footing under axial loading, the bearing capacity is influenced by the presence of rigid walls confining the foundation soil. This problem is investigated within the framework of the theory of yield design, considering both a perfectly rough and a frictionless contact condition at the interfaces with the walls in the case of a purely cohesive soil. Upper bounds for the correction factor to be applied to the classical value of the bearing capacity are determined, as functions of the non-dimensional geometric parameter of the problem, through the kinematic approach, implementing virtual velocity fields inspired from the solution to the problem of inverted extrusion. In the perfectly rough case, it appears that the new upper bound is a significant improvement of those already available. A very simple relationship is established, which derives the upper bound for the frictionless walls from the upper bound for the rough walls. A general conclusion of the analysis is that, for the values of the geometric parameter that are likely to be encountered in practice, the increase in the bearing capacity due to the presence of the rigid walls remains very small. To cite this article: J. Salençon, C. R. Mecanique 331 (2003).