The behaviour of footings resting on a non-homogeneous soil mass with a crust. Part 2: Circular footings

The behavior of circular footings resting on a nonhomogeneous elastic soil with a crust was investigated. The stiffness of the crust is either constant or to decrease with depth while the stiffness of the underlying soil increases linearly with depth. The effect of layer depth, crust depth and the rate of variation of stiffness within the crust and the underlying soil, upon the settlement profile is considered. The behavior of circular footings is compared with that of strip footings and the relative importance of the crust and the underlying soil parameters is discussed. The influence of cross anisotropy upon footing response is examined and the effects of neglecting anisotropy are indicated for a number of soil profiles.