SURFACE DISPLACEMENTS OF A NONHOMOGENEOUS ELASTIC HALF-SPACE SUBJECTED TO UNIFORM SURFACE TRACTION .2. LOADING ON RECTANGULAR SHAPED AREAS

An alternative approach for calculating the surface displacements of a non-homogeneous half-space acted upon by a vertical and/or horizontal load, uniformly distributed over a rectangular area, is presented in this part of the paper. The procedure proposed proves to be extremely efficient since the displacements can be found without numerical integ ration for this special loading pattern. Comparisons with solutions fo r rectangular loaded areas on Boussinesq- and Gibson-type soil show pe rfect agreement. In the case of the non-homogeneous half-space the pro cedure was checked using the method outlined in the first part of this paper revealing that both approaches come up with identical answers. Some results of a parametric study are presented for the surface displ acements of a non-homogeneous half-space subject to vertical and horiz ontal loading. In this study both the material properties of the soil mass, i.e. Young's modulus and Poisson's ratio and the aspect ratio of the loading are varied. These results are presented in the form of in fluence charts which may readily be used in hand calculations for esti mating the displacements of footings on a nonhomogeneous soil. (C) 199 7 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.