文摘
We outline a general methodology for proving the equivalence between several solutions available in the literature for the elastic problem of transversely isotropic materials. The proposed methodology is mathematically supported by a novel solution strategy yet arriving at the same expression of the displacement field contributed by Ding et al. (2006).We further show how to address the case of transversely isotropic half-spaces subject to linearly distributed vertical pressures applied over arbitrary regions of the half-space boundary. In the significant case of polygonal regions, displacements and stresses at arbitrary points of the half-space are evaluated analytically and the relevant singularities are properly accounted for.The proposed approach has been numerically validated by first solving a basic indentation problem for which an analytical expression of the displacements on the half-space surface is available. Furthermore, the displacement and stress fields induced in a half-space by a polygonal indenter of arbitrary shape subject to a prescribed vertical displacement is illustrated by means of representative contour plots.