Bearing capacity of shallow foundation by Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) analysis

The paper illustrates the potential of Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH) computing technique for accurate and efficient analysis of bearing capacity and failure mechanism of shallow foundations. SPH is a meshfree particle method based on Lagrangian formulation. Since the SPH method does not possess any mesh-related difficulties, it is more suitable to deal with large geometric changes of the domain of interest than the traditional mesh-based discretisation techniques such as finite elements, finite differences or finite volumes. Although the advantages of using SPH in the field of fluid and solid mechanics have been well described by many authors, its application in geotechnical engineering is still very limited. As an application of the SPH method to geotechnical problems, deep penetration of a shallow foundation into soil is simulated under plane strain conditions. The soil behavior is modelled by the non-associated Drucker-Prager model implemented into the SPH code. The computed results in terms of bearing capacity and failure mechanism are compared with the PLAXIS finite element results and the Terzaghi limit equilibrium method. The good agreement in the results emphasizes the potential application of the SPH method to a wide range of geotechnical problems.