Ahmad Ebrahimi Moghadam - Department of Civil Engineering, Science and Research Branch ,Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
Rahim Eftekhari Gol - Department of Civil Engineering, Shahrood Branch, Islamic Azad University Shahrood, Iran

Nowadays, more and more ring footings are used in practice special for axi-symmetric structures. In this paper, a numerical analysis was performed using PLAXIS software for calculating bearing capacity and settlement of ring footing. The parameters used in this analysis are the results of geotechnical studies of Mashhad cooling tower. The analysis was carried out using Mohr-Coulomb’s criterion for soil. The Bearing capacity was calculated for smooth and rough ring footing and then the bearing capacity factors were calculated. The analysis indicated that the bearing capacity of rough ring footing is obviously higher than the bearing capacity of smooth footing. Finally, the results were compared with those available in the literature.

settlement, Finite Element Method., bearing capacity, ring footing