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🪨 Bearing Capacity Explorer

A shallow foundation, real soil. Change the footing width and embedment depth and watch the allowable bearing pressure respond live — a feel for why wider and deeper foundations carry more, and by how much. No score, no target, just the general shear-failure bearing capacity equation doing its work.

Soil

φ (friction angle)30°

γ (unit weight)18 kN/m³

c (cohesion)0 kPa (sand)

Foundation

Width B 2.0 m

Embedment depth D_f 1.5 m

Live Result

Ultimate bearing capacity q_u—

Allowable pressure (FS=3)—

N_q / N_γ—

This simulation uses the exact general shear-failure bearing capacity equation (engine/geotech.js → bearingCapacity) used elsewhere on this platform — independently re-verified before publishing against a hand-calculated reference (φ=30°, γ=18, Df=1.5m, B=2.0m → Nq=18.401, Nc=30.140, Nγ=22.402, qu=900.08 kPa, exact match).

Method

Terzaghi (1943)qu = c·Nc + q·Nq + 0.5·γ·B·Nγ — general shear failure, vertical centric load.

FactorsNq = e^(π·tanφ)·tan²(45°+φ/2) (Prandtl 1921/Reissner 1924); Nγ = 2(Nq+1)tanφ (Vesić 1973).

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