Extended Sneddon and Muki solutions for multilayered elastic materials

This paper extends the Sneddon and Muki solutions to solve elastostatic problems in multilayered elastic materials. Using Hankel transforms, Sneddon and Muki developed general solutions of elastostatic problems in elastic materials occupying either halfspace or one layer regions. Based on the Sneddon and Muki solutions and a transfer matrix method, solutions are presented for elastostatic problems in multilayered elastic materials subject to both external and internal loading. A special technique is adopted to eliminate the ill-conditioned matrices associated with the conventional transfer matrix method for multilayered materials. The extended Sneddon and Muki solutions can be easily calculated using a personal computer. Numerical examples given in the paper show that the extended Sneddon and Muki solution generates results with high accuracy and efficiency. The extended Sneddon and Muki solution has wider applications to engineering science. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.