Foundation Engineering

Foundation Engineering

This is the bottom part of a substructure that convey the load of a structure along with its own mass into the soil below or surroundings devoid of moving shear failure or bearing capacity failure and excessive settlement, (Ground sill).

Das (2010) States Foundation as a portion that a structure is built on. The main purpose of this foundation is to give hold to the entire structure and distribute the weight of the structure evenly to avoid sloping or collapse of the structure or where the low artificially part of a construction which does the transmission of the load is built.

Purpose of the Foundation

Basically all foundations are based to fulfill some objectives and purposes;

i. To properly distribute the load of the structure build and allocate the structural load over a large bearing area in order to bring intensity of loading on a safer bearing ability of the soil lying underneath.

ii. To increase the firmness of the structure and prevent unequal settlement by bearing the surface at a uniform rate.

iii. It helps prevent the lateral movement of the used support material.

iv. To be able to put a safe level and strong bed for building operations

v. In order to stabilize the structure as in whole.

Function of foundation engineering

Foundation Engineering provides a foundation for a construction that is able to support the pre-designed super construction with no over capacity of the soil much creating a network of structural break down, this is determined by the construction engineers either to be shallow or deep good if they can out fit any construction site (Pramen, 2012).

Superstructure

This is the piece of a structure that is supported by the base, hence stated as any portion or part of a structure that is constructed on top of the ground. When designing the foundation engineers must consider the mass and dimension of the superstructure.

We have got two different types of foundation:

1....