A COMPARATIVE THEORETICAL–EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS OF SETTLEMENTS OF SHALLOW FOUNDATIONS ON GRANULAR SOIL

Abstract. The paper presents a brief description of experiment within the research project "Theoretical and experimental analysis of interaction of shallow reinforced concrete foundations and soil for the purpose of improvement of national regulations and implementaation of Eurocode system " where in situ tests of a series of reinforced concrete foundation footing were performed, by loading until failure. As a rule, methods for calculation of shallow foundations settlement on granular soils overestimate the expected settlement, and underestimate soil bearing capacity, which results in a conservative foundation design. In order to test accuracy and reliability of the different settlements prediction methods, a comparative analysis of settlements calculated using these methods and those measured during experiment, was performed. Key words: settlements, shallow foundations, granular soil, experiment, accuracy, reliability, comparative analysis