Avaliação de métodos de estimativa da capacidade de carga de fundações diretas em solos não saturados

Abstract

This paper presents an experimental and numerical analysis of the behavior of an unsaturated soil with respect to the bearing capacity of shallow foundations. For this, the results of two plate load tests on a 30 cm diameter plate in the Experimental Field of Foundations of the Federal University of Ceará, with soil in two different conditions, one with a natural moisture profile and the other with pre-flood are presented. Soil samples were collected in each of the trials, and the soil was later characterized. The soil suction in both situations were estimated through the soil-water characteristic curve. Several soil suction profiles are presented in accordance with the methodology proposed by Lu and Likos (2004), followed by the proposals of Oloo et al. (1997), Vanapalli and Mohamed (2007), Briaud (2013), Vahedifard and Robinson (2016) and Tang et al.(2017) for the determination of bearing capacity of shallow foundations in unsaturated soils. The values obtained in the application of these methods showed values of bearing capacity quite coherent with the values determined by the extrapolation of the curve from the unsaturated plate load test.