An extended Mohr-Coulomb (EMC) model for predicting the settlement of shallow foundations on sand

Predicting the settlement of shallow foundations on sand is a routine task for the geotechnical engineering profession. Despite this, there is no well-accepted solution for this very common problem. The aim of the present paper is to address this by presenting a soil model that is simple enough to be applied in routine engineering practice, but sophisticated enough to capture the important mechanical behaviour of sands relevant to the footing settlement problem. Emphasis is placed on the application of the model by presenting details of the process adopted for deriving model parameters prior to back-analysing foundation load tests.