Plate Settlement (inches) 

 Figure 1 5. Bearing pressure versus plate settlement for tests at Series IV site. 



It was originally felt that the plate bearing data would lend itself to 

 analysis by elastic theory for relatively small stresses and by bearing capacity 

 theory for relatively large stresses. For intermediate stresses it was anticipated 

 that some sort of empirical relation would be required. The following sections 

 present the development of these two approaches to the point at which their 

 predictions may be checked with the in-situ test data. 



Elastic Theory 



An elastic theory solution often applied to soil mechanics is the 

 Boussinesq Equation for the stresses and displacements beneath a point load 

 applied at the surface of a semi-infinite, homogeneous, linearly elastic solid. 



