Question

When the water table is above the base of the footing, the submerged weight ‘γ’ can be used to compute __________

(a) Effective pressure and Surcharge

(b) Pore pressure

(c) None of the mentioned

(d) All of the mentioned

The question was posed to me in quiz.

This intriguing question comes from Effect of Water Table on Bearing Capacity in portion Bearing Capacity of Geotechnical Engineering II

Answer 1

Correct choice is (a) Effective pressure and Surcharge

To elaborate: When the water table is above the base of the footing, the submerged weight ‘γ’ should be used for the soil below the water table for computing the effective pressure or the surcharge.