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Foundation Bearing Block: 3D Geomechanical Inelastic Soil Yield & Non-Associated Drucker–Prager Dilatancy
Geotechnical foundation soil block loaded by a concentrated structural footing pad, solved via 3D Drucker–Prager elastoplastic yield with pressure-dependent cohesion, internal friction, and dilatant volume expansion.
Soil and rock mechanics require yield criteria that account for hydrostatic pressure sensitivity and volumetric dilation during shear slip. This geotechnical case analyzes a 120 × 120 × 56 mm soil block supporting a central 30 × 30 mm structural foundation footing pad under 0.5 MPa bearing pressure. WebCAE's Drucker–Prager constitutive algorithm computes the localized shear failure bulb and plastic heave beneath the footing.
1. Geometry & FEA Mesh
- •3D B-Rep CAD model (`foundation_bearing_block.step`, 11 CAD faces, 120 × 120 × 56 mm).
- •1,870 TET4 elements, 524 nodes, 1,572 DOFs.
- •Soil/Geotechnical medium: E = 100 MPa, ν = 0.3, ρ = 2,100 kg/m³, cohesion c = 200 kPa, friction angle φ = 30°, dilatancy angle ψ = 10°.
2. Loads & Boundary Conditions
- •Rigid foundation bedrock boundary fixed across all components (`fix surface number 31`, bottom plane z = 0, 120 × 120 mm).
- •Footing contact pressure of p = 0.5 MPa applied to the central pad (`load surface number 37 pressure=0.5e6`, 30 × 30 mm, resultant Fz = -450 N).
- •Solved across 5 incremental load steps with radial return plastic mapping.
3. Simulation Results & Findings
- ✓Nonlinear convergence achieved in 5 increments and 20 Newton iterations with well-defined plastic zone development.
- ✓Maximum footing vertical settlement reaches |u|_max = 0.5217 mm directly under the load center.
- ✓Maximum equivalent plastic shear strain reaches ε_p = 13.29% with peak von Mises stress bounded at 1.082 MPa.
WebCAE's Drucker–Prager geomechanical solver allows geotechnical engineers to assess foundation bearing capacity, plastic failure cones, and settlement without relying on oversimplified empirical coefficients.
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