Articles techniques et présentations

Studies by Nishaat (2009) showed that Terzaghi\'s bearing capacity model didn\'t adequately predict the bearing capacity failure in Philippi Dune sands. Nishaat carried out her investigation using a physical model that was built in a geotechnical laboratory. The failure surfaces she observed in the sands did not resemble those predicted by Terzaghi and Meyerhof\'s models.

However the use of a physical model limited her capacity to observe the failure mechanism, the exact extent of plastic deformation and the stress distributions. In this study a simulation of the laboratory experiments done by Nishaat was developed. The simulation had the same failure load, similar patterns of plastic deformation and illustrated a failure mechanism that was different from that predicted by Terzaghi’s model.