A STUDY OF CONSOLIDATION OF CLAYEY SOILS

Abstract

Evaluation of consolidation characteristics of tine _rained soils plays a very important role in improving the ~[rength of sort Soils. settlement analysis. toLnldatlon problems and achieving safety and economy in the construction of various water resources projects. Besides this. it may also be required for determining arious other engineering properties of soils. It has been 86 years since J. Froward conducted in the year 191.1 experimental research on consolidation. Based on heat equation in 1923 father of soil mechanics, K. Terzaghi., published mathematical theory of consolidation. Recently the research on consolidation has gained momentum with new ideas and techniques on theories and experiments. But the problems are in fact not fully clarified to find an eventual solution. Contrarily the problems are becoming complex and some contradicting opinions have popped up in the process of interpreting these complicated problems, and most of these problems are related with secondary consolidation also known as creep, non-hydrodynamic or non- Terzaghian consolidation - An in-depth research and analysis was carried out to identify and overcome some these problems. It was shown that the existing methods, practiced by the geotechnical community over the world, were not efficient to use the Terzaghi's consolidation theory. Several better methods were suggested. A number of papers were published in the various international journals followed by discussion and closures on them by top level experts, and in this process a few new terms like instantaneous Cv, true Cv etc. were coined/redefined. This dissertation is an attempt to consolidate the entire published work to fill up the gaps and controversies arising out of discussions and closures, and to carry out further research on creep..