Errors in ground distortions due to settlement trough adjustment

Information about settlement troughs is obtained in the field by measuring discrete points. The evaluation of the accuracy of proposed expressions to represent settlement troughs is restricted because of the limited number of measuring points available in the field. The real ground distortion is sometimes significantly greater than that obtained from the approximate curves adjusted to the scarce points available. In addition, it has also been found that Gaussian curves, usually used for that purpose, do not always adjust well to settlement data. Better adjustments have been obtained with yield-density type curves. This paper evaluates the errors in, ground distortions due to those sources. In order to overcome the limitation of the number of settlement points usually available, numerical simulations have been analyzed. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.