Consolidation Settlement Under a Rectangular Load Distribution

Abstract

The author's general theory is applied to the calculation of the settlement through consolidation of a soil loaded uniformly on an infinite strip of constant width with particular reference to the nature of the settlement at the edge of the loaded area. The solution is obtained by first calculating the settlement produced by a suddenly applied load with sinusoidal distribution. The use of a Dirichlet integral and the principle of superposition leads then directly to the solution for the discontinuous loading.