Foundations and retaining walls are designed to Eurocode 7 using partial safety factors. The aim of designs to Eurocode 7 is to ensure that the occurrence of an ultimate or a serviceability limit state is sufficiently unlikely. The partial factors adopted in Eurocode 7 aim to provide a particular level of reliability, i.e. a certain reliability index or b value and b values are proposed in the Eurocodes for ultimate and serviceability limit states. This project involves calculating the values for foundations designed to Eurocode 7 and examining how the b values vary as the size of the foundation is increased.
The design of a gravity retaining wall involves designing different components – the base, the heel and the toe. This project involves finding the optimum dimensions for a given design situation to provide the most economic design that provides the required level of safety.
Different methods for the design of foundations with inclined and eccentric loads are examined, such as the foundations for wind turbines. In Eurocode 7, there is a number of different Designs Approached with different ways of applying the partial factors in the case of eccentric loads. Part of this project would be to investigate the effect of using these different Design Approaches and how they compare to existing foundation methods for eccentrically loaded foundations.
