A stochastic approach to the problem of bearing capacity by the method of characteristics

The method of characteristics applied to a strip footing based on the stochastic subsoil is presented in this paper. In order to include randomness of the soil medium in the bearing capacity problem, a modification of the method of characteristics is proposed. In such an approach, the stochastic finite difference method has been adopted. It allows determination of the influence of the spatial variability of cohesion on the variance of the collapse load of the bearing capacity problem. This paper shows that the variance vanishes for decreasing correlation of the cohesion.