Abstract
Two-soil-layer deposits are sometimes encountered in engineering practice. To accurately assess the consolidation condition of a two-soil-layer deposit, it is necessary to fairly estimate both the settlement- and excess pore water pressure-defined average degrees of consolidation of the system. In this study, the consolidation behavior of a two-soil-layer deposit is first experimentally and numerically investigated, and the results show that the average degree of consolidation defined by the excess pore water pressure (ADCu) is generally less than that defined by the settlement (ADCs), and the difference can be distinct when a softer and less permeable layer is located adjacent to the drainage boundary. A new index (β) denoting the permeability reduction in the soil layer adjacent to the drainage boundary is introduced to indirectly quantify the difference between the ADCu and ADCs. The β value is quantitatively correlated to the permeability, compressibility, soil layer thickness, and loading condition of a two-soil-layer deposit, and a simple method with general application procedures is finally proposed to evaluate the ADCu of a two-soil-layer deposit by modifying a theory that was originally developed to predict the ADCs. Application of the proposed method to another two consolidation tests of two-soil-layer deposits demonstrates that the method has satisfactory validity.
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Abbreviations
- C c :
-
Compression index
- C k :
-
Rate of permeability change with void ratio
- c' :
-
Effective cohesion
- c v :
-
Coefficient of vertical consolidation
- c v 1 :
-
Coefficient of vertical consolidation of soil layer 1
- c v 2 :
-
Coefficient of vertical consolidation of soil layer 2
- e :
-
Void ratio
- e 0 :
-
Initial void ratio
- H :
-
Thickness of model ground for a two-soil-layer deposit
- H 1 :
-
Thickness of soil layer 1
- H 2 :
-
Thickness of soil layer 2
- H R :
-
Thickness ratio
- K 0 NC :
-
Coefficient of at-rest earth pressure for normal consolidated soil
- k v :
-
Permeability in the vertical direction
- k v 0 :
-
Initial permeability in the vertical direction
- k v 1 :
-
Permeability of soil layer 1
- k v 2 :
-
Permeability of soil layer 2
- k v 1b :
-
Reduced permeability of soil layer 1
- M :
-
Slope of the critical state line
- m v :
-
Coefficient of volumetric compressibility
- m v 1 :
-
Coefficient of volumetric compressibility of soil layer 1
- m v 2 :
-
Coefficient of volumetric compressibility of soil layer 2
- p′:
-
Consolidation stress
- p′0 :
-
Initial consolidation stress
- p′f :
-
Final consolidation stress
- q :
-
Deviator stress
- s :
-
Settlement
- S :
-
Constant for evaluating undrained shear strength
- s u :
-
Undrained shear strength
- T v :
-
Time factor
- t :
-
Elapsed time
- U :
-
Average degree of consolidation
- u :
-
Excess pore water pressure
- z :
-
Depth
- σ :
-
The vertical total stress
- σ' v :
-
The representative vertical effective stress in a soil layer
- γ w :
-
Unit weight of water
- ∆e :
-
Change of void ratio induced by consolidation
- ∆e 1 :
-
Change of void ratio induced by consolidation of soil layer 1
- ∆p' :
-
Incremental loading
- β :
-
Permeability reduction index
- β 1 :
-
Permeability reduction index corresponding to HR = 1.0
- φ' :
-
Friction angle
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Acknowledgements
The authors express their appreciation for the financial support. The authors also extend their gratitude to Dr. Jixiang Nie, former PhD candidate of Saga University, Japan, for providing element test data. Last, our deepest gratitude goes to the anonymous reviewers for their careful work and thoughtful suggestions.
Funding
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 51709284 and 51908235), the Innovation Funds Plan of Henan University of Technology (Grant No. 2020ZKCJ05), and the Natural Science Foundation of Hunan Province (Grant No. 2021JJ40766).
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Appendix
Appendix
According to Zhu and Yin (1999), the ADCs of a two-soil-layer deposit subjected to instantaneous constant loading is
Tv is expressed as
For one-way drainage condition, ci can be expressed as
in which α and κ are
and λi is the ith positive root of the following equation
where m is
and n is
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Zhou, Y., Xu, F. A novel semianalytical method for evaluating the average consolidation degree of a two-soil-layer deposit. Bull Eng Geol Environ 81, 13 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10064-021-02506-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10064-021-02506-w