In this paper a practical numerical method for calculating the settlement response of piles embedded in multilayered soils is presented. Finite beam elements are used for the discretization of piles. The soil mass, which is considered as a semi-infinite or finite medium with each layer being elastic, homogeneous and isotropic, is modeled with the boundary element method and the Steinbrenner's approximation. In addition, the critical case in which the elastic modulus is decreasing with depth is appropriately treated by considering the soil as a half space inhomogeneous medium. The present formulation, besides yielding fully adequate results for design purposes when compared with other approaches, presents a more practical problem modeling and data preparation. Results of numerical examples considering single piles and pile groups are compared with those of other formulations in order to demonstrate the efficiency and accuracy of the proposed formulations.

在本文中，提出了一种用于计算多层土壤中桩的沉降响应的实用数值方法。有限梁单元用于桩的离散化。土体被认为是半无限或有限介质，每一层都是弹性的、均匀的和各向同性的，用边界元法和 Steinbrenner 近似法建模。此外，通过将土壤视为半空间非均质介质来适当处理弹性模量随深度减小的临界情况。与其他方法相比，本公式除了为设计目的产生完全足够的结果外，还提供了更实际的问题建模和数据准备。