Analysis for nonlinear finite strain consolidation of soft clay equipped with vertical drains

Vertical drains are commonly used to accelerate the consolidation process of soft soils, such as dredged materials, because they additionally provide a radial drainage path in a deep soil deposit. In practice, vertical drains are commonly installed in the process of self-weight consolidation of a dredged soil deposit. The absence of an appropriate analysis tool for this situation makes it substantially difficult to estimate selfweight consolidation behavior considering both vertical and radial drainage. In this paper, two new methods have been proposed to take into account both vertical and radial drainage conditions during nonlinear finite strain self-weight consolidation of dredged soil deposits. For one-dimensional nonlinear finite strain consolidation in the vertical direction, the simplified Morris's analytical solution (2002) and the PSDDF analysis are adopted. On the other hand, to consider the radial drainage, the Barron's vertical drain theory (1948) is used. The overall average degree of self-weight consolidation of the dredged soil is estimated using the Carillo's formula (1942), in which both vertical and radial drainage are considered. A series of large-scale self-weight consolidation experiments being equipped with a vertical drain has been carried out to verify the analysis method proposed in this paper. The results of the new analysis methods are generally in agreement with those of the experiments.