Lateral Resistance of Footings

The bearing capacity of foundations has always been one of the subjects of major interest in soil mechanics and foundation engineering. Evaluations of bearing capacity of vertically loaded shallow foundations on various soils have been studied by many researchers. There are structures where horizontal loading has greater influence and much research has not been carried out to evaluate the horizontal load bearing capacity of shallow foundations. This paper investigates the load-settlement behaviour of footings subjected to horizontal loads by carrying out a series of laboratory scale load tests. The parameters varied are Depth of footing, Soil type, Ratio of vertical load to horizontal load etc. It is observed that depth of foundation and vertical load influences the lateral load bearing capacity of footings. It is observed that the lateral deformation decreases with the increase in depth of foundation and vertical load. The tilt of the footing is also found to decrease with depth when the footing is subjected to combined lateral and vertical loading.