SCALED BOUNDARY FINITE-ELEMENT ANALYSIS OF A NON-HOMOGENEOUS ELASTIC HALF-SPACE JAMES P. DOHERTY 1 and ANDREW J. DEEKS 2 ABSTRACT As a result of stresses experienced during and after the deposition phase, a soil strata of uniform material generally exhibits an increase in elastic stiffness with depth. The immediate settlement of foundations on deep soil deposits and the resultant stress state within the soil mass may be most accurately calculated if this increase in stiffness with depth is taken into account. This paper presents an introduction to the scaled boundary finite-element method and incorporates non-homogeneous elasticity into the method. The variation of Young’s modulus (E) with depth (z) is assumed to take the form E=mEz α , where mE is a constant and α is the non-homogeneity parameter. Results are presented and compared to analytical solutions for the settlement profiles of rigid and flexible circular footings on an elastic half-space, under pure vertical load with α varying between zero and one, and an example demonstrating the versatility and practicality of the method is also presented. Known analytical solutions are accurately represented and new insight regarding displacement fields in a non-homogeneous elastic half-space is gained. KEY WORDS: Scaled boundary finite-element method, non-homogeneous elasticity, semi-analytical, Gibson soil, footing settlement 1 Dept of Civil Engineering, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia 6009, email: doherty@cyllene.uwa.edu.au, phone: +61 8 9380 3093, fax: +61 8 9380 1018. (Corresponding author.) 2 Dept of Civil Engineering, The University of Western Australia, Crawley, Western Australia 6009, email: deeks@civil.uwa.edu.au, phone: +61 8 9380 3093, fax: +61 8 9380 1018.