Beams on quasi-Winkler foundations

When an elastic foundation is incapable of exerting tensile reactions on the beam it supports, the Winkler model cannot be used throughout the whole span of the girder. The resulting problem leads to a set of nonlinear equations, and its complexity is further increased due to the necessity of visualizing the deflected shape a priori if the computing effort is to be minimized. An analysis of some simple case studies provides an estimate of the discrepancy between the Winkler model and its more realistic counterpart and concentrates on the type of problem where this discrepancy might be considerable.