Finite Layer Method to Calculate the Dynamic Compliance of a Foundation

The finite layer method to study the dynamic response of a three-dimensional layered soil foundation is presented in this paper. It is especially suitable for calculating the dynamic compliance of a layered soil foundation. This is due to the fact that it takes the layered characteristic of natural soil into account, where the displacement can be calculated by using a series of continuous differentiable functions in the two horizontal orthogonal directions, while simple polynomial displacement functions are used along the thickness. In order to calculate and compare the dynamic compliance of a rectangular foundation on the surface of three-layered soil, both the finite layer method and ABAQUS are used in this paper. The result curves of the two methods match well, and the process of the analysis shows that the finite layer method can reduce the analysis time, and improve the computation efficiency compared with finite element method.