Elastic fields for a heterogeneous geo-material medium under antisymmetric indentation of a circular rigid plate

This paper examines the contact problem of a heterogeneous geo-material medium indented by a circular rigid plate. The rigid plate is subjected to an applied moment about a horizontal axis. An n-layered half-space model is employed to analyze a heterogeneous geo-material half-space. The mathematical formulation of the n-layered half-space model is derived using classical integral transforms and a Fredholm integral equation of the second kind. Numerical methods are developed to solve the proposed analytical model. Numerical verification demonstrates that the layered approach can provide accurate solutions for the contact problem of the heterogeneous half-space with arbitrarily variable elastic constants in depth. Numerical results reveal the influence of geo-material heterogeneity on the elastic field of a heterogeneous medium under antisymmetric loading on a circular rigid plate.