Impedance functions for foundations embedded in a layered medium: An integral equation approach

Abstract An integral equation technique to calculate the dynamic response of foundations embedded in a layered viscoelastic half‐space when subjected to external forces and moments is presented. The technique is based on representing the radiated field as resulting from a set of sources distributed over a surface internal to the actual boundary of the foundation and by imposing the boundary conditions in an integral sense. The resulting non‐singular integral equation with symmetric kernel is solved by discretization and reduction to a system of linear algebraic equations. The technique is validated by comparison with previous results for cylindrical foundations with different embedment ratios.