ABSTRACT
The model footing and in-situ plate load tests results available in the literature were reanalyzed extending three different approaches to interpret the bearing capacity of unsaturated fine-grained soils; i) the effective stress approach by Terzaghi (1943) ii) the total stress approach by Skempton (1948) and iii) the reduction factors approach by Terzaghi (1943). The analysis of the results show that the bearing capacity values estimated extending the total stress approach using the unconfined compressive strength results for unsaturated fine-grained soils are close to the measured results in comparison to the other two methods. The analysis of the bearing capacity results on coarse-grained soils support using the effective stress approach by Terzaghi (1943).
