Elastoplastic analysis of a footing

ELASTOPLASTIC ANALYSIS OF A
FOOTING

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Elastoplastic analysis of a footing

INTRODUCTION
One of the simplest forms of a foundation is the shallow foundation. In this exercise we will
model such a shallow foundation with a width of 2 meters and a length that is sufficiently long
in order to assume the model to be a plane strain model. The foundation is put on top of a 4m
thick clay layer. The clay layer has a saturated weight of 18 kN/m3 and an angle of internal
friction of 200 .

Figure 1: Geometry of the shallow foundation.

The foundation carries a small building that is being modelled with a vertical point force.
Additionally a horizontal point force is introduced in order to simulate any horizontal loads
acting on the building, for instance wind loads. Taking into account that in future additional
floors may be added to the building the maximum vertical load (failure load) is assessed. For
the determination of the failure load of a strip footing analytical solutions are available from for
instance Vesic, Brinch Hansen and Meyerhof:

Qf
B
= c ∗ Nc + 12 γ 0 B ∗ Nγ
0
Nq = eπ tan ϕ tan2 (45 + 12 ϕ0 )
0
 q − 1) cot ϕ
Nc = (N
0
2(Nq + 1) tan ϕ
 (V esic)
Nγ = 1.5(Nq − 1) tan ϕ0 (Brinch Hansen)

(Nq − 1) tan(1.4 ϕ0 ) (M eyerhof )


This leads to a failure load of 117 kN/ m2 (Vesic), 98 kN/m2 (Brinch Hansen) or 97 kN/m2
(Meyerhof) respectively.

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 Elastoplastic analysis of a footing

SCHEME OF OPERATIONS
This exercise illustrates the basic idea of a finite element deformation analysis. In order to
keep the problem as simple as possible, only elastic perfectly-plastic behaviour is considered.
Besides the procedure to generate the finite element mesh, attention is paid to the input of
boundary conditions, material properties, the actual calculation and inspection of some output
results.

Aims
• Input

– Start new project

– Soil mode

* Create soil layers

* Create and assign soil material sets
– Structures mode

* Create footing
* Create load
– Mesh mode

* Generate mesh
– Staged construction mode

* Determine initial situation

* Calculation of vertical load representing the building weight
* Calculation of vertical and horizontal load representing building weight and wind
force
* Calculation of vertical failure load.
• Output

– Inspect deformations
– Inspect failure mechanism
– Inspect load-displacement curve

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Elastoplastic analysis of a footing

INPUT
Introduction
Start PLAXIS 2D by double-clicking the icon of the PLAXIS 2D Input program. The Quick
select dialog box will appear in which you can select to start an new project or open an
existing one. Choose Start a new project (see Figure 2). Now the Project properties window
appears, consisting of the two tabsheets Project and Model (see Figure 3 and Figure 4).

Figure 2: Quick select dialog

Project properties
The first step in every analysis is to set the basic parameters of the finite element model.
This is done in the Project properties window. These settings include the description of the
problem, the type of analysis, the basic type of elements, the basic units and the size of the
drawing area.

Project tabsheet

In the Project tabsheet, enter “Exercise 1” in the Title box and type “Elasto-plastic analysis of
a drained footing” or any other text in the Comments box.

Model tabsheet

In the Model tabsheet several model specific parameters can be specified

• In the Type box the type of the analysis (Model) and the basic element type (Elements)
are specified. As this exercise concerns a strip footing, choose Plane strain from the
Model combo box. Select 15-node from the Elements combo box.

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 Elastoplastic analysis of a footing

Figure 3: Project tabsheet of the Project Properties window

Figure 4: Model tabsheet of the Project properties window

• The Units box defines the units for length, force and time that have to be used in this
project. There is a choice for several units, both metric and emperial.
For this project use the default units (Length = m; Force = kN; Time = day).

• In the Contour box the size of the considered geometry must be entered. The values
entered here determine the size of subsoil input window. PLAXIS will automatically add
a small margin so that the geometry will fit well within the draw area. Enter xmin =0.00,
xmax =14.00, ymin =0.00 and ymax =4.25, see figure 4

• Click on the OK button below the tabsheets to close the Project properties window.

Hint: In the case of a mistake or for any other reason that the project properties
should be changed, you can access the Project properties window by
selecting the Project properties option from the File menu.

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Elastoplastic analysis of a footing

Soil Mode
The program is now in Soil mode in which the subsoil should be created. As shown in figure
1 the subsoil consist of a single 4m thick clay layer and creating this layer is done in 2 steps:
first the soil layer is defined through the definition of a borehole, after which the material set
representing the clay is defined and assigned to the appropriate layer.

Create soil layer

• Select the button Create borehole ( ) and click in the drawing area on the origin to
indicate a borehole should be created there. The Modify soil layers window opens, see
figure 5. Intially this window is empty as no boreholes have been defined yet for this
project.

Figure 5: The initial Modify soil layers window

• Now click the Add button in order to add a layer to the borehole.
• On the Soil layers tabsheet the different soil layers present in the borehole must be
defined. In this exercise there is only 1 soil layer with the Top at 4.0m and the Bottom at
0.0m, see figure 6.
• On the left side of the Modify soil layers window there is a graphical representation of
the borehole. Note that the soil layer does not have a soil material assigned yet.
• Above the borehole the Head option specifies the position of the global water level in
this borehole. In this exercise it is assumed that the phreatic level is at groundlevel, so
the Head must be set equal to 4.0 to indicate that the phreatic level is at ground level.

• Now press the <OK> button to close the Modify soil layers window. The drawing area
now shows a grey rectangular subsoil.

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 Elastoplastic analysis of a footing

Figure 6: The Modify soil layers window with 1 borehole containing 1 soil layer

Create and assign material sets

In this exercise 2 material sets will be used: one material set for the clay layer, and the second
material set will be used to model the concrete footing. To create the material sets, follow
these steps:

• Select the Materials button ( ) - the Material sets window will open. The list of
material sets available for this project is still empty.

• Click on the New button at the lower side of the Material Sets window. A new dialog box
will appear with five tabsheets: General, Parameters, Flow parameters, Interfaces and
Initial (see figure 7).

• In the Material Set box of the General tabsheet, write “Clay” in the Identification box.

• Select Mohr-Coulomb from the Material model combo box and Drained from the Material
type combo box.

• Enter the proper values for the weights in the General properties box according to the
material properties listed in table 1

• Click on either the Next button or click on the Parameters tabsheet to proceed with
the input of model parameters. The parameters appearing on the Parameters tabsheet
depend on the selected material model (in this case the Mohr-Coulomb model).

• Enter the model parameters of table 1 in the corresponding edit boxes of the Parameters
tabsheet. The parameters in the Alternatives and Velocities group are automatically
calculated from the parameters entered earlier.

• See also figure 8. In this figure the Advanced parameters part has been collapsed.

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Elastoplastic analysis of a footing

Figure 7: General tabsheet of the soil and interface data set window for Clay

• Since the geometry model does not include groundwater flow or interfaces, the third and
fourth tabsheet can be skipped. Click on the OK button to confirm the input of the current
material data set.

• Now the created data set will appear in the tree view of the Material Sets window.

Table 1: Material properties of the clay layer and the concrete footing.
Parameter Symbol Clay Concrete Unit
Material model Model Mohr-Coulomb Linear elastic —
Type of behaviour Type Drained Non-porous —
Weight above phreatic level γunsat 16.0 24.0 kN/m3
Weight below phreatic level γsat 18.0 — kN/m3
Young’s modulus E0 5.0·103 2.0·107 kN/m2
Poisson’s ratio ν0 0.35 0.15 —
0
Cohesion cref 5.0 — kN/m2
Friction angle ϕ0 20 — °
Dilatancy angle ψ 0 — °

For the concrete of the footing repeat the procedure, but choose a Linear Elastic material
behaviour and enter the properties for concrete as shown in table 1 (see also figures 9 and
10).

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 Elastoplastic analysis of a footing

Figure 8: Parameters tabsheet of the soil and interface data set window for Clay

Figure 9: General tabsheet of the soil and interface data set window for Concrete

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Elastoplastic analysis of a footing

Figure 10: Parameters tabsheet of the soil and interface data set window for Concrete

• Now from the Material sets window drag the Clay material set with the mouse over the
grey subsoil and drop it. The subsoil should now get the colour of the material set, see
figure 11.

Figure 11: Subsoil before (left) and after (right) assigning the Clay material set

This ends the creation of the subsoil in Soil mode. By clicking on the Structures tabsheet now
move to Structures mode.

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 Elastoplastic analysis of a footing

Structures mode

Introduction
In Structures mode the footing as well as the point load acting on the footing will be created.
However, first an adjustment to the snapping interval must be made in order to be able to draw
the 0.25m thick footing. By default, the snapping interval is set to 1m.

• From the vertical toolbar select the Snapping options button ( ). The Snapping window
now opens.

• Make sure the options Enable snapping and Show grid are selected

• Leave the Spacing to 1 m

• Set the Number of snap intervals to 4. This means that every spacing of 1 meter is
divided in 4, hence the snapping distance will be 0.25m.

• Click the <OK> button to confirm the new settings and close the window.

Create footing

1. Select the Create soil button ( ) and from the drop-down list that opens now select
the Create soil rectangle button ( ).

2. Move the mouse cursor to the coordinates (x y) = (6 4) and single-click the left mouse
button

3. Now move the mouse cursor to the coordinates (x y) = (8 4.25) and single-click the left
mouse button again. We have now created the footing.

4. Select the Show materials button ( ), the Material sets window will open.

5. Drag-and-drop the Concrete material set onto the footing.

Create load

1. Select the Create load button ( ) and from the drop-down list that opens select the
Create point load option ( ).

2. Move the mouse cursor to the coordinates (x y) = (7 4.25) and single-click the left mouse
button to insert the point load.

This concludes the creation of the footing and loads. By clicking on the Mesh tabsheet now
move to Mesh mode.

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Elastoplastic analysis of a footing

Mesh mode
In Mesh mode the user can specify necessary mesh refinements and generate the mesh. In
this exercises no additional mesh refinement will be used.

• Select the Generate mesh button ( ). The Mesh options window will open.

• Leave the Element distribution to Medium and press <OK> to start mesh generation

• If mesh generation finished succesfully this will be confirmed in the Command explorer
with the message "Generated XX elements, YY nodes" where XX and YY stand for the
amount of elements and nodes respectively.

• Select the View mesh button in order to view the generated mesh, see figure 12.

Figure 12: Generated mesh

Close the mesh window by selecting the green <Close> button. This ends the Mesh mode.
As no water levels will be used in this exercise, the Water levels mode can be skipped and we
can move directly to Staged construction mode to define the calculation phases.

Staged construction mode

In Staged construction mode all calculation phases will be defined. In this exercise we will use
5 calculation phases, which includes the initial phase.

Initial phase
The initial phase represents the field conditions that exist at the moment our project starts.
This means that only the subsoil exists in the initial conditions whereas the footing should be
deactivated.

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 Elastoplastic analysis of a footing

• Right-click on the footing. The footing will become red (indicating it is selected) and a
drop-down menu appears.
• From the drop-down menu select the option Deactivate in order to deactivate the footing.

Phase 1: Construction of the footing

• In the Phase explorer select the Add phase button ( ) so that a new phase will be
added.
• Right-click on the footing and from the drop-down menu that appears select the option
Activate to activate the footing, see figure 13.

Figure 13: Geometry configuration for the initial phase (left) and phase 1 (right)

Phase 2: Apply vertical load

• In the Phase explorer select the Add phase button ( ) so that a new phase will be
added.
• Click on the point on which the load acts so that it becomes red. On the left side the data
of the load now appears in the Selection explorer.
• Activate the point load and set the value of the vertical component, Fy,ref = -50 kN (=
downwards), see figure 14.

Phase 3: Add horizontal load

• In the Phase explorer select the Add phase button ( ) so that a new phase will be
added.
• Click on the point on which the load acts so that it becomes red. On the left side the data
of the load again appears in the Selection explorer.
• Set the value of the vertical component of the point load, Fx,ref = 20 kN, see figure 14.

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Elastoplastic analysis of a footing

Figure 14: Activating and changing the point load through the Selection explorer in phase 2
(left) and phase 3 (right)

Phase 4: Vertical failure load

In this phase we will calculate the vertical failure load as if no horizontal load has been applied.
This means that phase 4 must be a continuation of applying the vertical load in phase 2.

• In the Phase explorer select phase 2 so that it will show in bold letter type

• Now select the Add phase button ( ) so that a new phase will be added that follows on
phase 2 rather than on phase 3.

• Click on the point on which the load acts so that it becomes red. On the left side the data
of the load again appears in the Selection explorer.

• Set the value of the vertical component of the point load, Fy,ref = -500 kN. Note that
Fx,ref should remain 0 (zero).

This finishes the definition of the calculation phases for this project.

Calculation

Load-displacement curves
As a calculation result we would like to draw a load-settlement curve for the footing. In order
to do so, the user must select one or more points for which Plaxis has to gather data during
the calculation:

• Select the Select points for curves button ( ). The output program now opens, showing
the mesh with all nodes.

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 Elastoplastic analysis of a footing

• Select the node in the middle underneath the footing, hence at or very close to (x y) = (7
4). The node will appear in the Select points list, see figure 15.

• Close Plaxis Output by clicking the green <Update> button.

Figure 15: Selecting points for node displacement curves

Calculate

Press the Calculate button ( ) to start the calculation.

Note that the last calculation phase fails: the intended vertical load of 500 kN cannot be fully
applied due to failure of the subsoil underneath the footing.

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Elastoplastic analysis of a footing

RESULTS
Output

After the calculation finishes, click the View calculation results button ( ). Plaxis Output
will open, showing the calculation results of the last calculation phase.
By default Plaxis Output will show the Defomed mesh, see figure 16. If this is not the case the
Deformed mesh can be shown by choosing the menu Deformations → Deformed mesh |u|.

Figure 16: Deformed mesh after phase 4

Now choose the menu option Deformations→ Incremental displacements→|∆u|, see figure
17.
The incremental displacements is the change in displacements in the current calculation
step (here that is the last calculation step of the phase 4). Under working conditions the
change of displacement per calculation step is quite small, but in case of failure, the change of
displacements can be large inside the failure zone. Therefore the Incremental displacements
graph can be very suitable for detecting whether failure occurs and what the failure zone may
look like. Figure 17 shows the typical Prandtl-like failure zone.

Figure 17: Incremental displacements for the final calculation step of phase 4

Finally, we will inspect the load-settlement curve and determine the failure load. To do so,
follow these steps:

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 Elastoplastic analysis of a footing

• From the button bar select the Curves manager button ( ). The Curves manager will
open.
• In the Curves manager select the <New> button in order to generate a new curve. Now
the Curve generation window opens.
• In the Curve generation window, select for the x-axis data from point A (instead of Project
data) from the drop down list.
• Now in the tree below, select Deformations → Total displacements→ |u|
• For the y-axis we will plot a Project value, and that is the Multiplier ΣM stage.
• Press <OK>. A curve as can be seen in figure 18 will show.

Figure 18: Load-settlement curve

In a Plaxis calculation any change made in a construction phase leads to a so-called unbalance,
that is a disturbance between the total of the internal stresses and the external load. This
unbalance is gradually solved using the ΣM stage multiplier. The ΣM stage multiplier indicates
how much of the unbalance has been solved, where ΣM stage = 0 indicates that no unbalance
was solved and ΣM stage = 1 that the full unbalance has been solved.
In the curve shown in figure 18 the lines at the left indicate the variation of ΣM stage for the first
3 calculation phases, where as the long curved line shows the variation of ΣM stage during
the final phase.
It shows that at failure occurs when ΣM stage = 0.38, hence 38% of the unbalance was solved.
In this case the unbalance applied was the increase of the vertical load from 50 kN/m to 500
kN/m. Hence, at failure the total load applied is the load at the beginning of the phase (50
kN/m) plus 38% of the change of load that could be applied: Fmax = 50 + 0.38 · (500 − 50) = 221
kPa
The exact value of the ΣM stage multiplier can be inspected by moving the mouse cursor over
the plotted line. A tooltip box will show up with the data of the current location.

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Elastoplastic analysis of a footing

Comparison
In addition to the mesh used in this exercise calculations were performed using a very coarse
mesh with a local refinement at the bottom of the footing and a very fine mesh. Fine meshes
will normally give more accurate results than coarse meshes. Instead of refining the whole
mesh, it is generally better to refine the most important parts of the mesh, in order to reduce
computing time. Here we see that the differences are small (when considering 15-noded
elements), which means that we are close to the exact solution. The accuracy of the 15-
noded element is superior to the 6-noded element, especially for the calculation of failure
loads.
Hint: In plane strain calculations, but even more significant in axi-symmetric
calculations, for failure loads, the use of 15-noded elements is recommended.
The 6-noded elements are known to overestimate the failure load, but are ok
for deformations at serviceability states.

Table 2: Results for the maximum load reached on a strip footing on the drained sub-soil for
different 2D meshes

Mesh size Element Nr. of Max. Failure

type elements load load
[kN/m] [kN/m2 ]
Medium mesh 15-noded 212 221 117
Very coarse mesh 6-noded 84 281 147
Medium mesh 6-noded 212 246 129
Very fine mesh 6-noded 626 245 129
Very coarse mesh 15-noded 84 224 118
Very fine mesh 15-noded 626 221 117
Analytical solutions of:
- Vesic 117
- Brinch Hansen 98
- Meyerhof 97

In this table the failure load has been calculated as:

Qu M aximum f orce M aximum f orce

B
= B
+ γconcrete ∗ d = 2
+6

From the above results it is clear that fine FE meshes give more accurate results. On the other
hand the performance of the 15-noded elements is superior over the performance of the lower
order 6-noded elements. Needless to say that computation times are also influenced by the
number and type of elements.

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 Elastoplastic analysis of a footing

ADDITIONAL EXERCISE:

UNDRAINED FOOTING

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Elastoplastic analysis of a footing

INTRODUCTION
When saturated soils are loaded rapidly, the soil body will behave in an undrained manner, i.e.
excess pore pressures are being generated. In this exercise the special PLAXIS feature for
the treatment of undrained soils is demonstrated.

SCHEME OF OPERATIONS
In PLAXIS, one generally enters effective soil properties and this is retained in an undrained
analysis. In order to make the behaviour undrained one has to select ‘undrained A’ as the type
of drainage. Please note that this is a special PLAXIS option as most other FE-codes require
the input of undrained parameters e.g. Eu and νu .

Aims
• The understanding and application of undrained soil behaviour

• How to deal with excess pore pressures.

• Use previous input file and ave as new data file

• Soil mode

– Change material properties, undrained behaviour for clay

• Mesh mode

– Mesh generation, global mesh refinement B)

• Staged construction mode

– Re-run existing calculation phases

• Output

– Inspect excess pore pressures

Soil mode

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INPUT
Use previous input file
If PLAXIS Input is no longer open, start PLAXIS by clicking on the icon of the Input program
and select the existing project file from the last exercise (drained footing). From the File menu
select Save As and save the existing project under a new file name (e.g. ‘exercise 1b’).

Change material properties

• Change material properties by selecting the Show materials button ( ). Please note
that this button is only available in Soil mode, Structures mode and Staged construction
mode.

• From the Material sets window, select the ’Clay’ and click on the <Edit> button.

• In the Soil window that opened on the first tab sheet (General) change the Drainage
type to "Undrained A" and close the data set.

Mesh generation
The mesh generator in PLAXIS allows for several degrees of refinement. In this example
we will globally refine the mesh, resulting in an increased number of finite elements to be
distributed along the geometry lines:

• Go to the Mesh mode

• Select the Generate mesh button ( ) and in the Mesh settings window choose Fine
for the Elements distribution.

Calculation
• Go to the Staged construction mode. All phases are indicated by (blue arrows)

After mesh (re)generation, staged construction settings remain and phase information is rewritten
automatically for the newly generated mesh. However, this is not the case for points for load
displacement curves due to the new numbering of the mesh nodes.

• Click on the Select points for curves button ( ) in the toolbar. Reselect the node
located in the centre directly underneath the footing

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Elastoplastic analysis of a footing

• Click on the Calculate button ( ) to recalculate the analysis. Due to undrained

behaviour of the soil there will be failure in the 3rd and 4th calculation phase.

OUTPUT
As mentioned in the introduction of this example, the compressibility of water is taken into
account by assigning ’undrained’ behaviour to the clay layer. This normally results, after
loading, in excess pore pressures. The excess pore pressures may be viewed in the output
window by selecting:

• Select in the Phases explorer the phase for which you would like to see output results.

• Start the output program by clicking the View calculation results button ( ).

• In PLAXIS Output, select from the Stresses menu the option Pore pressures and then
pexcess , this results in figure 19.

The excess pore pressures may be viewed as contour lines ( ), shadings ( ), stress
crosses ( ) or as tabulated output ( ). If, in general, stresses are tensile stresses the
principal directions are drawn with arrow points. It can be seen that after phase 3 on the
left side of the footing there are excess pore tensions due to the horizontal movement of the
footing. The total pore pressures are visualised using the option of active pore pressures.
These are the sum of the steady state pore pressures as generated from the phreatic level
and the excess pore pressures as generated from undrained loading.

Figure 19: Excess pore pressures at the end of the 3rd phase

• Select from the Stresses menu the option Pore pressures and then pactive . The results
are given in figure .

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 Elastoplastic analysis of a footing

From the load displacement curve it can be seen that the failure load in the last phase is
considerably lower for this undrained case compared to the drained situation, as expected.
For the undrained case the failure load is just under 70 kPa.

Figure 20: Active pore pressures at the end of the 3rd phase

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Elastoplastic analysis of a footing

APPENDIX A: BEARING CAPACITY

CALCULATION
Given the formula for bearing capacity of a strip footing:

Qf
B
= c · Nc + 12 γ 0 B · Nγ
0
Nq = eπ tan ϕ tan2 (45 + 12 ϕ0 )
0
 q − 1) cot ϕ
Nc = (N
0
2(Nq + 1) tan ϕ
 (V esic)
Nγ = 1.5(Nq − 1) tan ϕ0 (Brinch Hansen)

(Nq − 1) tan(1.4 ϕ0 ) (M eyerhof )


Filling in given soil data:

Nq = eπ tan(20) tan2 (55) = 6.4

 − 1) cot(20) = 14.84
Nc = (6.4
2(6.4 + 1) tan(20) = 5.39
 (V esic)
Nγ = 1.5(6.4 − 1) tan(20) = 2.95 (Brinch Hansen)

(6.4 − 1) tan(28) = 2.97 (M eyerhof )


The effective weight of the soil:

γ 0 = γw − 10 kN/m3 = 18 − 10 = 8 kN/m3

For a strip foundation this gives:


1 2
5 ∗ 14.83 + 2 ∗ 8 ∗ 2 ∗ 5.39 ≈ 117 kN/m
 (V esic)
Qf
B
= c · Nc + 12 γ 0 B · Nγ = 5 ∗ 14.83 + 12 ∗ 8 ∗ 2 ∗ 2.95 ≈ 98 kN/m2 (Brinch Hansen)

5 ∗ 14.83 + 12 ∗ 8 ∗ 2 ∗ 2.87 ≈ 97 kN/m2 (M eyerhof )


24 Computational Geotechnics