Consolidation analysis for unsaturated soils

Abstract

This paper deals with the multidimensional consolidation of unsaturated soils when both the air phase and water phase are continuous. Following the approach proposed by D.G. Fredlund and his coworkers, the differential equations governing the coupled and uncoupled consolidation are first derived and then solved numerically. The solution is achieved using a procedure that depends on the transformation of the field equations by using the Fourier transform. This transformation has the effect of reducing a two- or three-dimensional problem to a problem involving only a single spatial dimension. The transformed equations are solved using a finite element approximation that makes use of simple one-dimensional elements. Once the solution in the transformed domain is obtained, the actual solution is achieved by inversion of the Fourier transform. The time integration process is formulated in a stepwise form. Results are presented to point out some aspects of the consolidation in unsaturated soils. Moreover, it is shown that the results obtained using the simple uncoupled theory are of sufficient accuracy for practical purposes.Key words: coupled consolidation, uncoupled consolidation, unsaturated soils, Fourier transform.