What is Bearing capacity

The bearing capacity of the soil is the average contact stress between the foundation and the soil that will cause shear failure in the soil. The allowable bearing stress is the bearing capacity divided by the factor of safety. Sometimes, on soft clay sites, large settlements can occur under heavily loaded foundations without true shear failure; In such cases, the allowable bearing stress is determined with respect to the maximum allowable settlement.Three modes of failure are possible in soil: general shear failure, local shear failure and punching shear failure.