The invention relates to a method for calculating foundation settlement, which comprises the following steps of: partitioning a
base plane of a building or a structure and the like into blocks, giving an additional pressure coefficient of each block area, and obtaining a
geological section of a settlement part to be calculated and physical and mechanical parameters of soil; the method comprises the following steps: dividing foundation soil into a plurality of thin
layers, calculating self-weight stress and additional vertical stress of each
thin layer, determining an initial
small strain modulus under a corresponding
stress level, and determining initial rigidity of a spring for simulating a transverse constraint effect of a soil body; the initial
deformation modulus and the spring stiffness are reduced according to the shear strain in the
small strain stage, the tangent modulus and the
vertical strain of each
thin layer are calculated according to the
shear stress level in the
large strain stage, and then the compression amount of each
thin layer is calculated and accumulated to obtain a foundation settlement value. According to the method, by considering the horizontal elastic-plastic constraint of the surrounding soil body on the soil body of the to-be-calculated settlement part, the problems that the lateral confinement compression modulus adopted by an existing method does not conform to the actual stress condition of the foundation, and settlement of saturated soil under the undrained condition cannot be calculated are solved.