The second order solution of Boussinesq’s problem

Due to the tensile state of stress, there exist two families of stress contours (Fig. 2): one family for the tensioned soil and one family for the compressed soil, with the two families separated by straight lines. Moreover, the parametric analysis on the vertical cross-section shows that greater values of E increase the vertical stresses at each depth without modifying the shape of the iso-lines of stress, which change in size homothetically (Fig. 2).