Consolidation of an Anisotropic Soil Stratum on a Smooth-Rigid Base Due to Surface Loads

Abstract

The solution of fully coupled system of equations governing the axisymmetric quasi-static deformation of a poroelastic medium with anisotropic permeability is employed to obtain the expressions for pore pressure, stresses and displacements in a soil stratum overlying a smooth-rigid pervious or impervious base. Both fluid as well as solid constituents are taken to be compressible. We use the stiffness formulation. The solution is obtained in the Laplace–Hankel transform domain. The problem of a normal circular loading is discussed in detail. The vertical settlement of the soil stratum and diffusion of pore-pressure in the stratum has been computed numerically in the space–time domain. The effect of anisotropic permeability and compressibilities of the fluid as well as solid constituents on the consolidation process is studied.