factor of safety for load plate test

[aboallol]

hi
i am doing plate test for a ground which was improved to get the design bearing capacity of 200 kpa.
can any body please tell me how much the applied pressure should be, i mean the safety factor between the test pressure and the design bearing capacity, and also the standard which based on.

 

[amanpreet]

normally the FOS ranges between 2-3

 

[oldestguy]

While you are concerned about how much overload pressure to apply, do you have a dependable way to correlate your test plate settlement to footing allowable settlement. To me once you are satisfied the pressure is sufficient for SF, the more critical thing is "how much will the footing settle" at your selected pressure?

A larger footing at the same pressure as your test plate will settle more, possibly much more.

 

[BigH]

What oldestguy is nicely pointing out is that for most soils it is not the shear capacity that governs but the serviceablity (settlement). One question is whether the plate load test is done in granular or cohesive soil. In granular soils, there are "correlations" for different sized footings - but if this is a cohesive soil, it may (and probably) won't tell you anything about consolidation settlement.