In a new paper approaches to calculate the long-term settlement of dynamically loaded shallow foundation analogous to conventional analytical settlement analyses using the HCA model are presented.

Together with Dirk Wegener from GEPRO Ingenieurgesellschaft mbH (Dresden), we present an extension of conventional analytical settlement analyses that takes into account the accumulation of deformations due to cyclic loads with high frequencies, as they occur for example for railway tracks. The incorporation of a threshold strain amplitude, below which no accumulation of deformations occurs, in the HCA model is discussed. It is demonstrated that the simple analytical approach, which does not require numerical calculations, gives results very similar to more complex finite-element simulations.

P. Staubach, D. Wegener, J. Machaček, T. Wichtmann: Long-term settlement of dynamically loaded shallow foundations. International Journal of Geomechanics, 2024.  https://ascelibrary.org/doi/10.1061/IJGNAI.GMENG-8977