1D Consolidation of Silty Clay Subject to Different Ramp Loadings

In engineering projects, soils are subjected to pre-loading and radial drainage to accelerate the process of consolidation. A comparative study for consolidation of silty clay under time-dependent ramp loadings is presented in this paper. The distribution of pore water pressure across the depth of a soil sample at various time intervals is computed numerically in MATLAB considering various ramp loadings. Finite difference method has been adopted for the analysis. Further, the characteristics of the consolidation under instantaneous loading and time-dependent loading are discussed. The results of this study present the magnitude of average of degree of consolidation of the soil at various time intervals for the respective time variant loading conditions. All of these are compared with a standard invariable load of same magnitude at those respective time intervals. Hence, the most effective loading procedure can be chosen from the results of this study which would result in the most efficacious consolidation in shortest time.