US Patent 7627428 Method of evaluating surface deformation

The present invention generally relates to methods for rapidly calculating the surface displacement that results from an arbitrarily shaped load on the surface of a layered substrate. Some embodiments include sparse direct calculations of surface displacement in combination with interpolation methods for estimating surface displacement at other points. Some embodiments include methods for reducing computer time required for calculating surface displacement caused by an arbitrarily shaped load on a layered surface.