A flexible rectangular footing on a Gibson soil: Required rigidity for full contact (Q675367)

The problem of a rectangular footing or a strip footing resting on a nonhomogeneous elastic half-space is studied. The medium is assumed to be isotropic with a shear modulus linearly increasing with depth, and a constant Poisson's ratio equal to \(1/3\). The fundamental solution for the nonhomogeneous half-space is separated into the fundamental solution for the homogeneous half-space and a function related to the nonhomogeneity of the half-space. The latter function is approximated by an analytically tractable expression. The contact region is discretized using an adaptive scheme that accounts for the possible edge and corner singularities. The latter scheme removes the burden of most of the numerical integration. A rigid strip footing and a rigid rectangular footing are treated first to ascertain the convergence of the solution procedure and to provide information requisite for the flexibility study.