Abstract
Road embankment where the unsaturated soil layer lies above the saturated soil layer is often encountered in geotechnical engineering, but the analytical models for evaluating the plane stain consolidation characteristics of an unsaturated–saturated ground are limited. With a combination of the consolidation theories for saturated and unsaturated soils, this paper thus develops a plane strain consolidation model for exploring the transient behavior of unsaturated–saturated soils subjected to instantaneous loading. A semi-analytical solution, which is a simple tool for assessing unsaturated–saturated soil consolidation, is proposed by making use of decoupling strategy, Fourier expansion as well as Laplace transformation. Further, the proposed solution in this paper is validated by the published analytical or semi-analytical solutions in some specific cases. By implementing the proposed solution into a computation, the consolidation behavior of an unsaturated–saturated subgrade is presented, and the effects of important factors, including the anisotropic permeability ratio and interlayer permeability ratio, are studied. The anisotropic permeability ratio and interlayer permeability ratio are significant indexes to change the consolidation rate of lower soils so that the prefabrication of lateral drainage boundary on both sides of the unsaturated–saturated subgrade would accelerate its consolidation.
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