New Elastoplastic Method for Calculating the Contact Pressure Distribution under Rigid Foundations

An elastoplastic method for calculating the contact pressure distribution under rigid foundation has been developed and presented in this paper. The developed method is based on an elastoplastic approach. The first step is to find the point separating the elastic and plastic regions; i.e., the extent of the elastic and plastic yield zone under a specific load level. The contact pressure distribution is then found by combining a “modified” elastic distribution within the elastic zone and the contact pressure distribution within the plastic yield zone. An advanced elastoviscoplastic finite element analysis on rigid foundations was conducted to evaluate the accuracy of both the developed method and the Schultze method. It was found that the developed method yields better results than the Schultze method for all types of soils. The extent of plastic yielding using the developed method was found in complete agreement with the elastoviscoplastic finite element analysis. The Schultze method was found to overpredict the extent of plastic yielding underneath the foundation by about 12% at high load levels to 30% at low load levels.