Partial consolidation and breakthrough of shallow foundations in soft soil

[Truncated] This thesis has addressed the deep penetration of foundations, starting from shallow embedment, into soft soils with undrained shear strength that increases with depth. A particular focus has been of partial consolidation within the soil, either during steady penetration at constant velocity, or following a consolidation period under maintained constant load. The potential for punch-through of spudcan foundations following partial consolidation has been addressed. The research has been carried out primarily by large deformation finite element calculations employing the RITSS approach, although centrifuge model tests on spudcan foundations were also carried out to aid evaluation of the numerical results. In the RITSS approach a Biot-type Mohr-Coulomb soil model was implemented for partially drained calculations. The RITSS algorithm was modified to simulate penetration of objects, under displacement control, but with an intermediate partial or full consolidation stage under constant load. Additionally, fully undrained analyses were conducted employing a Tresca failure criterion.