Beams on Elastic Foundations

Many engineering applications involve a relatively rigid structure supported by a more flexible distributed ‘foundation’. An important class of examples arises in civil engineering, where buildings or other structures are supported on a soil base. Other less obvious examples include steel components supported on extended rubber bushings, floating structures (where the support is provided by the buoyancy force) and the transmission of load between bones through an intervening cartilidge or other softer tissue layer. The roughness and/or lack of conformity between contacting bodies can also simulate an intervening softer foundation.