“…During the last several decades a fairly large number of approaches has been proposed in the literature for rigid rectangular footings, an exact solution of which is still not available. In this respect, solutions have been provided by Borodachev (1976), Borodachev and Galin (1974), Brothers et al (1977), Butterfield and Banerjee (1971), Dempsey and Li (1989), Fabrikant (1986), Gorbunov-Possadov et al (1984), Mullan et al (1980), Noble (1960), Panek and Kalker (1977) and Sovinc (1961). Semi-empirical approaches combining the theory of elasticity with experimental and/or numerical results also exist in the literature (Foye et al, 2008;Lee and Salgado, 2002;Mayne and Poulos, 1999;Schmertmann, 1970;Schmertmann et al, 1978).…”