Vertical and horizontal deformation of an inhomogeneous elastic half‐space

Vertical and horizontal deformations of surface footings have been studied for an inhomogeneous elastic half‐space in which the shear modulus increases with an arbitrary power of depth, n , and Poisson's ratio is constant. A general solution for displacements has been obtained first for point loads applied in vertical and horizontal directions. These are then used in obtaining closed‐form solutions for displacements of uniformly loaded circular and rectangular footings. Finally, a numerical method is described that can be used to analyse a rigid footing of an arbitrary shape, and results for rigid rectangular footings are given.