Shallow foundation performance in a calcareous sand

The paper presents results from eight small scale load tests performed on shallow footings founded on an unsaturated calcareous sand at a site located about 100 km North of Perth, Western Australia. These tests highlight inadequacies of traditional bearing capacity approaches and show the potential for more reliable estimates of bearing capacity through direct correlations with CPT data. Both the shear stiffness and creep characteristics of this particular calcareous sand deposit are shown to be consistent with those inferred from footing tests on a siliceous sand.