A generalized consolidation model under cyclic loading

Abstract

A generalized consolidation model is proposed to compute pore water pressure and degree of consolidation of cohesive soils subjected to long-term cyclic loading. The fundamental in-situ stress and Terzaghi’s principle of effective stress are adopted to formulate the proposed analytical model where undrained pore water pressure generation for cohesive soil is introduced. By employing Laplace transformation, a closed-form nonlinear solution for consolidation is derived. This paper presents a parametric study to investigate the effects of parameters like cyclic stress ratio, frequency, plasticity index of soil and confining pressure on consolidation during cyclic loading. Rate of consolidation is found to increase with increase in cyclic stress ratio and confining pressure and decrease in frequency of loading. Further, the proposed analytical model agrees well with the published data which indicate that it may be used by the practising engineers for prediction of consolidation under long-term cyclic loading.