A refined model for beams on elastic foundations

Abstract The concept of a beam or slab on an elastic foundation has been one of the convenient tools for obtaining solutions to several geotechnical engineering problems. While it is easy to establish quite accurately the stiffness characteristics of the beam or the slab, the parameters which govern the behavior of the subsoil or the elastic foundation are indeed hard to model. This difficulty remains true even if one assumes that the soil has linear, isotropic, and homogeneous properties. Using the Vlasov model. Vallabhan and Das (1988, J. Engng Mech. Div., ASCE 114 (2). 2072–2082) have developed an effective iterative technique to solve the beam-on-elastic-foundation problem where the soil is assumed to have a uniform depth with a rigid base at the bottom. Geotechnical engineers usually encounter subsoil of finite depth, and normally the elastic properties are considered to remain constant or vary linearly with depth. In this paper, the authors have extended their model to incorporate numerically this physical characteristic of the soil. Even though the derivations may look laborious, the numerical model is quite simple and can be programmed on a desktop computer.