Punching settlement in loessoid soils. About the numerical modeling of this phenomenon

Loessoid soils are a special category amongst the continental sedimentary formations in the quaternary era. The term “loess” comes from the german word lose or los, used around the Rhine River region, and its meaning is loose, porous, crumbly. Loess has high porosity due to its macropores, which are visible to the naked eye and it is also very sensitive to humidity. This last characteristic has caused a lot of problems in the construction and operation process of buildings; it also made loessoid soils fit into the cathegory of very difficult terrains to build on.

Punching settlement takes place when the foundation body pierces through the porous environment due to the breakage of its contracting macrostructure. This penetration effect leads to the creation of a plug of material that has reduced porosity, delimited by a contour that closes on the perimeter of the foundation surface.

Punching settlement has been studied in the past by I. Chercasov in 1967, A. Chirică after 1990 and C. Ciurea after 1999.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight the phenomenon of punching settlement through numerical modeling using the following calculation programs: COSMOS/M, which uses the finite element method in various linear and nonlinear, static and dynamic problems from various fields, and the FEM module in the GEO5 program, which is a modern calculation program specialized in solving geotechnical engineering problems.