New Formulations of Boussinesq Solution for Vertical and Lateral Stresses in Soil
Publication: Practice Periodical on Structural Design and Construction
Volume 26, Issue 2
Abstract
Calculation of stresses within a soil body due to surface loading is a required step when designing buried commodities and subgrade wall structures. The Boussinesq equation is commonly used for determining stresses in soil due to surface loading, with examples for use found industrywide. However, the available formulations have limitations, or they only cover simple cases. The purpose of this work is to review the derivation of the Boussinesq equation for vertical and lateral stresses in a soil body and to present several new, closed-form solutions for various surface load cases, including finite line and finite area loads. The formulations are presented as Cartesian coordinate functions such that the stress at any point in the subsurface plane of interest can be found, not just the peak stress or the stress contour at a specific line. This is particularly useful when considering load distribution at a lateral extent from a finite loading, which may be significantly lower than the peak loading.
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Data Availability Statement
No data, models, or code were generated or used during the study.
Acknowledgments
The author would like to thank his colleague Michael P.H. Marohl, P.E. (Sargent & Lundy) for providing helpful feedback on this paper and continual collaboration on the Boussinesq theory, and the peer reviewers for reviewing this paper and providing constructive comments.
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Practice Periodical on Structural Design and Construction
Volume 26 • Issue 2 • May 2021
Copyright
© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jun 22, 2020
Accepted: Nov 2, 2020
Published online: Jan 12, 2021
Published in print: May 1, 2021
Discussion open until: Jun 12, 2021
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