Update for Program VDISPL, Vertical Displacements of Shallow Foundations

A few years back we “resurrected” a program from the document EM 1110-1-1904, Settlement Analysis, called VDISPL, Vertical Displacements of shallow foundations. The description of the program is given as follows:

This program, Vertical DISPLacements, was developed to assist in the calculation of vertical displacements beneath shallow foundations for various types of multilayered soils in support of this manual. The two types of foundations considered are rectangular footings or mats and long strip footings. These foundations are assumed flexible. Models available are immediate settlement of granular soil from cone penetration data, immediate settlement of granular soil from both cone penetration and dilatometer data, immediate settlement of an elastic soil using the Boussinesq pressure distribution and Young’s elastic soil modulus, consolidation or swell of a cohesive soil (ASTM D 4546), and settlement of a collapsible soil. Soil expansion is indicated by positive values and settlement by negative values.

It’s an old program with strictly text file input, which is described in the documentation. When we first posted it, it was a 32-bit program with a 16-bit interface. Windows versions from 7 onward generally don’t run any 16-bit code, so we have recompiled this to run in pure 32-bit mode (and more efficiently, although that’s not an issue with computer power being what it is these days…)

This program was originally written by Larry D. Johnson, a fine Christian man who worked for many years at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Waterways Experiment Station in Vicksburg, MS. He tragically passed away from brain cancer, and this is posted in his memory.