Consolidation of Saturated Soils through a Different Prism

Abstract

The founding principles of consolidation of soils was set by Terzaghi dating back to 1923. This theory focused on the interplay between pore pressure dissipation and effective stress increase on fully saturated soils, and works by means of the diffusion theory in one-dimensional flow conditions under constant static external loading. The theory remains to use still and works as the funding stone for all subsequent formulations in the international theory. It is noted, that all consolidation formulations reduce to the original Terzaghi’s theory (as they comprise its extensions) for one-dimensional flow under constant static loading on fully saturated conditions. This paper revisits the consolidation theory and derives the governing equations via a rigorous integration of mass conservation, which accounts for instantaneous void ratio alterations within the continuity equation by including an additional term in the consolidation coefficient. This gives shorter consolidation times compared to Terzaghi’s original expression. The derived equations reduce to Terzaghi’s with appropriate manipulation. The paper compares the 1D consolidation coefficients to Terzaghi’s and other formulations, and proposes a simplified solution of the consolidation equation based on regression, accompanied with a workaround to include the rigorous approach in commercial (FEM, FDM) codes within the consolidation governing equations.