Abstract
This study was carried out to investigate the mechanical behaviour of the plate on a Winkler's foundation according to the soil-structures relative stiffness and the applicability of the conventional analysis method. For the above purpose, Winkler's constant of 4, 15, 25 and 100kg/$cm^2$/cm was considered and the plate thickness of 20, 30, 50, 100 and 150cm was adopted. Results obtained from the numerical examples are summarized as follow: 1. The effects of elastic foundation is considerable for plates with small flexural rigidity. 2. As the Winkler's constant increases, the bending moment in the plate becomes localized near the loading point. 3. The stresses evaluated by the conventional method not correct even for rigid ground such as rock. 4. If the relative stiffness of the plate is very large, for example the plate thickness is larger than 100cm, the conventional analysis method can be justified for the design purposes. 5. On assumption the flexural rigidity of the plate is infinite, the interaction of soil and plate can be ignored in design consideration. The numerical examples in this paper show that when the plate thickness is more than 100cm, the effects of elastic foundation almost disappear. In practical design, soil-plate interaction should be taken into account, because the 100cm-thickness of the plate will not be practical value in usual sites.