SURFACE DISPLACEMENTS OF A NONHOMOGENEOUS ELASTIC HALF-SPACE SUBJECTED TO UNIFORM SURFACE TRACTION .1. LOADING ON ARBITRARILY-SHAPED AREAS

A numerical technique is presented for the analysis of surface displac ements of a non-homogeneous elastic half-space subjected to vertical a nd/or horizontal surface loads uniformly distributed over an arbitrari ly shaped area. The non-homogeneity considered is a particular form of power variation of Young's modulus with depth. Since the exponent whi ch determines the degree of non-homogeneity may vary from zero to unit y, both the homogeneous half-space and the Gibson soil may be included as limiting cases in a single numerical scheme. In order to account f or the arbitrary shape of the loading, the boundary of the loaded area is linearized piecemeal. This enables the modeling of any load patter n according to the desired degree of accuracy. Special attention is fo cused on the integration scheme, since the singularity associated with the Green's function becomes progressively more pronounced the greate r the non-homogeneity parameter gets. The performance of the numerical procedure is studied using analytical solutions for rectangular shape d areas. Further comparisons with well-known solutions based on integr al transform techniques for a uniformly distributed load acting on a c ircular area of the non-homogeneous soil mass show excellent agreement as well. (C) 1997 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.