need a good reply for this post on my form

Excellent post, Joseph

As you can review in the textbook, when talking about the stresses developed in a soil mass many factors can affect the stresses generated into the soil. The type of load, obviously, as you mentioned in your post, is crucial to determine the type of stresses. Remember also that we have several types of loads acting on the soil structure depending on the type of project and the structural system that was chosen to resist all the loads acting on the building. Obviously, the type of soil, the different layers that comprise the soil and the depth at which is recommended to set the foundation of the structure determine the magnitude of these stresses; in addition to these stresses, we need to compare them with the stresses that the soil can resist to avoid the failure of the soil. Along with these stresses we need to determine not only the instantaneous settlements produced by the immediate application of the loads into the soil but also, we need to determine the consolidation settlements that are produced by the displacement of squeezing of the water due to the action of the load throughout the years.

These concepts, namely the stresses and the settlements, need to be understood and to know how to quantify them to predict the performance of the soil when loaded by a particular structure.