Large-strain elastic viscoplastic consolidation analysis of very soft clay layers with vertical drains under preloading

A very soft clay layer is highly compressible and exhibits significant creep under loading. The classical linearly elastic constitutive relationship and small-strain assumption are not suitable for the consolidation analysis of very soft clays. This paper presents a new large-strain consolidation model that incorporates the Yin–Graham elastic viscoplastic (EVP) constitutive equation for use in studying the consolidation of very soft clay layers with vertical drains under preloading. First, the large-strain fluid continuity equation and the EVP constitutive equation are incorporated into a quadratic differential equation of pore-water pressure and its integral terms. Second, the alternating-direction implicit (ADI) method and virtual node method are adopted to obtain the finite difference solution. A computer program named “BSSDS” is developed for large-strain EVP consolidation analysis of clay layers with vertical drains, taking into account the complicated in situ conditions, such as resistance of vertical drains, smear effects, variation of permeability with void ratio, and multilayered soils. Third, the new large-strain numerical method is applied to the consolidation modeling of very soft clay layers with vertical drains under preloading at a site that is part of the Hong Kong – Shenzhen Western Corridor Link Project. It is found that the foundation settlements of the new large-strain EVP consolidation model have good agreement with the measured data. Finally, three different consolidation models are used to calculate the average degree of consolidation and settlements of the clay layers. The analysis shows that it is essential to consider both large-strain compression and creep effects in the analysis of very soft clay layers with vertical drains under loading.