The Performance of a Curvilinear Versus a Rectangular Basement Foundation Design in Expansive Clay Soils

Shallow foundation design in expansive soils has generally been approached in the industry using a typical pier/beam or spread footing/foundation wall and reinforcement design. The addition of supporting piers anchored in stable soils and excavated expansion areas under beam elements have modified a traditional foundation design for expansive soils. This traditional approach to foundation design uses designs that mitigate around the swelling effects, rather than designing to take advantage of, or resist the imposed forces.;This research defines a new shallow foundation design that uses a curvilinear structure to take advantage of the forces exerted on the foundation by the expansive forces of the soil. In addition, the design allows for a cast-in-place or precast implementation. The curvilinear foundation design was modeled using LS DYNA Finite Element analysis and compared to a traditional rectangular foundation design using 3D models. In addition, the soil and concrete models were evaluated by comparing the LS DYNA model results (deflection, shear, tensile/compression) for both foundation designs.