Applying triaxial compression stiffness data to settlement prediction of shallow foundations on cohesionless soil

This paper proposes an expression for the triaxial compression stiffness of a siliceous sand and gravel based on the findings of recent research and on data from laboratory tests incorporating local small-strain instrumentation. The expression captures the strong, but variable, stress level and loading history dependence of stiffness in addition to the well-known effects of density and strain level. The formulation is applied to settlement records made in carefully controlled footing tests and is shown, when used in conjunction with additional simplifying design assumptions, to be suitable for the prediction of the settlement of shallow foundations on cohesionless soil at typical working loads.