Moving Load Response of Layered Soil. I: Formulation

The response of fluid-saturated porous media to moving surface load is important in many fields of engineering and physics. The approach outlined in this paper represents an attempt at expanding the state-of-the-art in the estimation of the dynamic response of a layered nonlinear soil deposit subjected to a moving load. A more computationally efficient semianalytical method based on Biot's formulations for porous medium is proposed for loads under plane-strain conditions. It is a continuum-based approach that uses a Fourier transform technique in which the soil deposit can be saturated, unsaturated, or a combination of both. The approach can handle complex surface loading, such as multiple loads, non-uniform pressures, and other types of time-varying loads. This paper (Part I) presents the formulation, and a companion paper (Part II) presents the application of this approach in which the predictive capability of the model and the associated computer code are verified using laboratory model tests and classical solutions.