Undrained Stability of Footings on Slopes

Solutions for the ultimate bearing capacity of footings on purely cohesive slopes are obtained by applying finite element upper and lower bound methods. In a footing-on-slope system, the ultimate bearing capacity of the footing may be governed by either foundation failure or global slope failure. The combination of these two factors makes the problem difficult to solve using traditional methods. The importance of a dimensionless strength ratio in determining the footing capacity is broadly discussed, and design charts are presented for a wide range of parameters. In addition, the effect of footing roughness and surface surcharge are briefly quantified. (C) 2011 American Society of Civil Engineers.