ABSTRACT
Assume that a rigid punch under the force N is placed on the surface of soil possessing a structural strength. Displacements occur in the soil body due to that loading; their magnitude increasing as the pressure on the foundation increases. If the pressure under punch foot exceeds the structural strength of soil, consolidation deformation will develop in the foundation, which can be shown to increase linearly with increasing pressure, within a range of fairly small stresses, usually arising in the foundation. Solutions of the theory of elasticity are applied to stress-strain problems for continuous elastic isotropic bodies. In order to apply these solutions to soils one must take a number of assumptions and introduce certain restrictions. In order to verify the applicability to soil of solutions of the theory of elasticity, many investigators carried out experiments with measuring gauges deployed at different depths in natural soil foundations of test footings.
