TY - JOUR

T1 - Optimal borehole placement for the design of rectangular shallow foundation systems under undrained soil conditions

T2 - A stochastic framework

AU - Jerez, Danko J.

AU - Chwała, M.

AU - Jensen, Hector A.

AU - Beer, Michael

N1 - Funding Information: This research is partially supported by the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange under the Bekker NAWA Programme, Grant No. BPN/BEK/2021/1/00068 , which funded the postdoctoral stay of the second author at the Institute for Risk and Reliability, Leibniz Universität Hannover. In addition, this paper is based upon work partially funded by ANID (National Agency for Research and Development, Chile) under FONDECYT No. 1200087 . These supports are gratefully acknowledged by the authors.

PY - 2024/2

Y1 - 2024/2

N2 - This contribution proposes a framework to identify optimal borehole configurations for the design of shallow foundation systems under undrained soil conditions. To this end, the minimization of a performance measure defined in terms of the bearing capacity standard deviations is considered. The random failure mechanism method is adopted for random bearing capacity evaluation, thereby enabling explicit treatment of soil spatial variability with tractable numerical efforts. A sampling-based optimization scheme is implemented to account for the non-smooth nature of the resulting objective function. The proposed framework provides non-trivial sensitivity information of the chosen performance measure as a byproduct of the solution process. Further, the method allows assessing the effect of increasing the number of soil soundings into bearing capacity standard deviations. Three cases involving different foundation layouts are studied to illustrate the capabilities of the approach. Numerical results suggest that the herein proposed framework can be potentially adopted as a supportive tool to determine optimal soil sounding strategies for the design of a practical class of civil engineering systems.

AB - This contribution proposes a framework to identify optimal borehole configurations for the design of shallow foundation systems under undrained soil conditions. To this end, the minimization of a performance measure defined in terms of the bearing capacity standard deviations is considered. The random failure mechanism method is adopted for random bearing capacity evaluation, thereby enabling explicit treatment of soil spatial variability with tractable numerical efforts. A sampling-based optimization scheme is implemented to account for the non-smooth nature of the resulting objective function. The proposed framework provides non-trivial sensitivity information of the chosen performance measure as a byproduct of the solution process. Further, the method allows assessing the effect of increasing the number of soil soundings into bearing capacity standard deviations. Three cases involving different foundation layouts are studied to illustrate the capabilities of the approach. Numerical results suggest that the herein proposed framework can be potentially adopted as a supportive tool to determine optimal soil sounding strategies for the design of a practical class of civil engineering systems.

KW - Optimal borehole placement

KW - Random failure mechanism method

KW - Soil spatial variability

KW - Spatial averaging

KW - Transitional Markov chain Monte Carlo

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85175824221&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.ress.2023.109771

DO - 10.1016/j.ress.2023.109771

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85175824221

VL - 242

JO - Reliability Engineering and System Safety

JF - Reliability Engineering and System Safety

SN - 0951-8320

M1 - 109771

ER -