Experimental Study of Bearing Capacity Effect in Swelling Soil

Abstract

The current study aims to investigate the effects of swell pressure on the bearing capacity of swelling soil. A model and some laboratory tests have been created to investigate the swell pressure effect on the bearing capacity variation of soil swelling due to swelling pressure. The influence of varying water content w/c and dry unit weight (γ d ) on the shear strength and swelling pressure was studied. The soil has been taken from Diwan Residential Compound-Mosul. It is classified as highly swelling soil. The swell pressure of soils at their natural water content reached 385 kN / m2 . Experiment results show that the parameters of shear resistance decreased with the w/c increase at the constant value of (γ d ), increased with the (γd ) increase when the w/c was constant. Results show that the swelling pressure decreased with the w/c increase, while it increased with the (γ d ) increase. Also, the results obtained using was model show that the resistance of bearing capacity of pre-saturated selected soil was 196 kN / m 2, while the bearing capacity was 620kN / m 2 when taking into account in the generation of swelling pressure.