Effects of body force on transient poroelastic consolidation due to groundwater pumping

By applying linear poro-elasticity theory, the body force effect on steady soil consolidation, i.e., settlement, caused by constant water table depression due to groundwater pumping was investigated. The result shows that when the soil is soft or thick, or both, neglecting the body force effect can lead to severe underestimation of soil displacement and incremental effective stress. However, the transient response of soil consolidation was not analyzed. In addition, the water table depression due to groundwater pumping in fact varies with time. In this study, the body force effect on transient consolidation of soil subjected to variable water table depression is further examined. A poroelastic consolidation numerical model is developed herein to conduct this examination.     

Group interaction on vertically loaded piles in saturated poroelastic soil

The pile-to-pile interaction was obtained for vertically loaded piles embedded in homogeneous poroelastic saturated soil. Deduced from Biot’s theory, the fundamental functions of the quasi-static development for the force, displacement and pore pressure were acquired in cylindrical coordinates. The pile–soil system was decomposed into extended soil and fictitious piles, and the compatibility condition was set up between the axial strain of the fictitious piles and the corresponding average strain over the extended soil. This approach results in the governing equations, which consist of the Fredholm integral equations of the second kind and the basic unknowns of the axial forces along the fictitious pile shaft. The axial force and settlement along the pile shaft were calculated based on the axial forces of the fictitious piles. The interaction between the piles was investigated under different consolidation conditions through a two-pile model, and two pile interaction factors were obtained. Stemming from the two-pile analysis, numerical analyses on the settlement of the pile groups were conducted to probe pile interaction with consolidation. The conventional solutions for the single-phase soil-pile problem seem to underestimate the interaction factor if the consolidation effect is taken into account as pile settlement continues. The pile-to-pile interaction can also aggravate the percentage of consolidation settlement (PCS), and as the pile number increases, the value of the PCS will also increase. Several key factors, such as the pile stiffness, pile slenderness ratio and pile spacing, are investigated to better understand the impact of consolidation on pile analysis.     

Axisymmetric consolidation of a poroelastic soil layer with a compressible fluid constituent due to groundwater drawdown

Axisymmetric consolidation of a poroelastic soil layer with a compressible fluid constituent induced by groundwater drawdown was studied based on Biot’s axisymmetric consolidation theory. Laplace and Hankel transforms were employed to solve the governing equation. Explicit analytical solutions are obtained in the Laplace–Hankel transform domain when groundwater drawdown is induced by a constant pumping well. Based on the solutions, numerical computations were performed to study the influences of the compressibility of the fluid constituent on the consolidation behavior of the soil layer.     

地下水位升高时黏性土无限边坡的水平位移

在平面应变条件下,采用摩尔-库仑强度准则和相关联流动法则,对地下水位升高过程中平移模式下的黏性土无限边坡进行了弹塑性分析,探讨了坡体变形的变化规律,分析了边坡安全系数和坡面水平位移的关系。数值分析表明,土坡的初始应力状态和抗剪强度指标对地下水位升高过程中滑坡前塑性区的厚度、坡体内塑性应变和水平位移的发展都有很大影响。     

The consolidation characteristics of an unsaturated compacted soil

The compacted soils are extensively employed as mineral liners or a sealing system, constructed under municipal solid waste and other containment hazardous materials to prevent or minimize the leakage of pollutant liquids and gases into ground water and sublayers. This article presents a detailed experimental study on settlement characteristics, which are required for the construction of a sealing system. For the experimental study where a compacted unsaturated soil taken from Adana in Turkey has been used, a special equipped consolidation cell has been designed and constructed. The matric suction adopted as independent stress-state variables has been controlled by using the axis translation technique. The consolidation tests have been performed under constant matric suction. Furthermore, the pressure plate tests for various net vertical stresses have been conducted. The test results have indicated that the settlement characteristics of a compacted soil as mineral liners and covers are highly affected by matric suction. The water retention capacity of mineral liners, an important factor for hydraulic conductivity, also changes with the vertical load. The compressibility decreases as the matric suction increases. It has been observed that there exists an exponential relationship between the compressive indexes (C _t, D _t) and matric suction.     

Amplitude reduction of elastic waves by a row of piles in poroelastic soil

This paper studies the displacements behind a row of elastic piles in a homogeneous unbounded poroelastic soil after excitation by the passage of elastic waves. Biot’s theory is employed to describe soil behavior. Using a Fourier–Bessel series expansion with the aid of a translational addition theorem, closed-form expressions for the scattering coefficients are developed by imposing continuity conditions at the pile–soil interfaces. The influence of certain parameters, such as pile rigidity and soil permeability on the screening performance of the pile barrier is investigated. Particular attention is focused on the influence of the soil permeability on the screening effectiveness of a row of piles in the frequency domain.     

Deformation effects of porosity variation on soil consolidation caused by groundwater table decline

Soil consolidation has been widely analyzed using the poroelastic theory. As soil consolidation proceeds, porosity variation leads to the changes in hydraulic conductivity, Young’s modulus, and body force. However, the combined deformation effect of porosity variation on soil consolidation is rarely examined. In this study, a poroelastic consolidation model used to simultaneously consider the changes in hydraulic conductivity, Young’s modulus, and body force was developed to investigate the combined deformation effect of porosity variation on soil consolidation caused by groundwater table decline. The results indicate that the deformation effect of porosity variation on soil consolidation is negligible when the body force number is <0.01. For body force numbers >0.01, soil displacement could be overestimated or underestimated if the combined deformation effect of porosity variation is not completely considered. The misestimation of soil displacement increases as the body force number increases. In addition, the combined deformation effect of porosity variation also affects the transmission of pore water pressure. Therefore, it could be concluded that a reliable analysis of soil consolidation must simultaneously account for the variations in hydraulic conductivity, Young’s modulus, and body force.     

Analytical solution for the 1D consolidation of unsaturated multi-layered soil

The 1D consolidation of unsaturated multi-layered soil is studied based on the theory proposed by Fredlund and Hasan, and an analytical solution for a typical boundary condition is obtained by assuming all material parameters remain constant during consolidation. In the derivation of the analytical solution, the eigenfunction and eigenvalue for the multi-layered problem are first derived through the transfer matrix method. Then, by using the method of undetermined coefficients and the orthogonal relation of the eigenfunction, the analytical solution is obtained. The present method is applicable to various types of boundary conditions. Finally, numerical examples are provided to investigate the consolidation behavior of unsaturated multi-layered soil.     

BEM analysis of the interaction factor for vertically loaded dissimilar piles in saturated poroelastic soil

This paper focuses on an analysis by the boundary element method (BEM) of the pile-to-pile interaction for pile groups with dissimilar piles of different pile lengths embedded in saturated poroelastic soil. The behaviour of the poroelastic homogeneous soil is governed by Biot’s consolidation equations. The pile–soil system is decomposed into extended soil and fictitious piles. Considering the compatibility of vertical strain between fictitious piles and soil, the second kind of Fredholm integral equations were obtained to predict the axial force and settlement along pile shafts numerically. For the analysis of the interaction factor, two loading conditions for a two-dissimilar-pile system were proposed: (a) only one pile is loaded and (b) each pile is subjected to a load proportional to the pile length. Furthermore, the two-pile system was extended to pile groups with a rigid cap to capture the optimum design where each pile shares the same loading at the pile heads. The optimum results require shortening the peripheral piles and elongating internal piles, and the consolidation effect needs to be considered due to the adjustment of loading distribution among piles.     

Integrated method of RS and GPR for monitoring the changes in the soil moisture and groundwater environment due to underground coal mining

Mining affects the environment in different ways depending on the physical context in which the mining occurs. In mining areas with an arid environment, mining affects plants’ growth by changing the amount of available water. This paper discusses the effects of mining on two important determinants of plant growth—soil moisture and groundwater table (GWT)—which were investigated using an integrated approach involving a field sampling investigation with remote sensing (RS) and ground-penetrating radar (GPR). To calculate and map the distribution of soil moisture for a target area, we initially analyzed four models for regression analysis between soil moisture and apparent thermal inertia and finally selected a linear model for modeling the soil moisture at a depth 10 cm; the relative error of the modeled soil moisture was about 6.3% and correlation coefficient 0.7794. A comparison of mined and unmined areas based on the results of limited field sampling tests or RS monitoring of Landsat 5-thermatic mapping (TM) data indicated that soil moisture did not undergo remarkable changes following mining. This result indicates that mining does not have an effect on soil moisture in the Shendong coal mining area. The coverage of vegetation in 2005 was compared with that in 1995 by means of the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) deduced from TM data, and the results showed that the coverage of vegetation in Shendong coal mining area has improved greatly since 1995 because of policy input RMB￥0.4 per ton coal production by Shendong Coal Mining Company. The factor most affected by coal mining was GWT, which dropped from a depth of 35.41 m before mining to a depth of 43.38 m after mining at the Bulianta Coal Mine based on water well measurements. Ground-penetrating radar at frequencies of 25 and 50 MHz revealed that the deepest GWT was at about 43.4 m. There was a weak water linkage between the unsaturated zone and groundwater, and the decline of water table primarily resulted from the well pumping for mining safety rather than the movement of cracking strata. This result is in agreement with the measurements of the water wells. The roots of nine typical plants in the study area were investigated. Populus was found to have the deepest root system with a depth of about 26 m. Based on an assessment of plant growth demands and the effect of mining on environmental factors, we concluded that mining will have less of an effect on plant growth at those sites where the primary GWT depth before mining was deep enough to be unavailable to plants. If the primary GWT was available for plant growth before mining, especially to those plants with deeper roots, mining will have a significant effect on the growth of plants and the mechanism of this effect will include the loss of water to roots and damage to the root system.     

真空联合堆载预压加固含承压水软基中水位和出水量变化规律研究

对含承压水地层的真空联合堆载预压地下水位和出水量变化进行了分析和研究。现场测试结果表明,（1）撕膜和非撕膜的塑排板施工工艺能有效防止承压水贯通,真空联合堆载预压加固软基效果较为明显;（2）联合预压期间地下水位相对稳定,最大水位下降值为1.8 m,工程后期SW2水位上升约1.0 m,说明加固区局部已贯通承压水层;（3）加固区内外承压水水位变化具有类似的规律,加固区内外水位变化分别受真空度分布和降雨的影响;（4）抽真空初期出水量较大,随着抽真空时间增加出水量迅速减小,在工程后期单泵出水量小于同一地区相同工法加固深厚软基的单泵出水量,说明研究区真空联合堆载预压并未完全贯通承压水地层。     

土质边坡微型桩组合结构大型振动台试验研究

我国是一个地震多发国家。微型桩组合结构作为一种新型柔性支护结构,研究其在地震作用下对土质边坡的支护作用成为了一个意义重大的问题。为此,通过大型振动台试验,以混合加载的方式,研究了微型桩组合结构在加固土质边坡中的动力学特性。试验结果表明：微型桩组合结构在地震作用下对土质边坡的加固达到了理想的结果;加载时随着El波加速度峰值的不断增大,前、后排微型桩桩身加速度峰值及桩身动土压力随之不断增大;随着输入的El-Centro波动峰值加速度的增大,测点动土压力响应效应也越显著;微型桩滑面上、下1/3位置、悬臂端顶部及锚固段底部处,动土压力及加速度常常达到最大值,在实际工程设计及应用中应重点关注这些位置。该研究结果可以为同类地区治理类似滑坡提供抗震设计支撑。     

Thermomechanical response of a poroelastic half-space soil medium subjected to time harmonic loads

The thermomechanical responses of a porous elastic medium subjected to time harmonic loads (normal force and thermal source) are investigated analytically in the context of generalised thermoelastic theory with one relaxation time. The material of the foundation, obeying Biot’s dynamic poroelastic theory, is idealised as a uniform, fully saturated poroelastic half-space stratum. The coupled governing equations are established based on Biot’s dynamic poroelastic theory and on generalised thermoelastic theory. Assuming the disturbances to be harmonically time dependent, the general solutions of stress, displacement, temperature distribution and excess pore water pressure are deduced using the Fourier transform, and the transformed solutions are numerically inverted. The differences among the coupled thermo-hydro-mechanical dynamic model (THMD), the hydro-mechanical dynamic model (HMD) and the thermo-elastic dynamic model (TMD) are discussed. In addition, the effects of the thermal loading frequency on the displacement, stress, temperature distribution and excess pore water pressure components are analysed in the numerical results.     

考虑渗流与变形耦合作用的基坑工程空间效应

基于三维比奥固结理论,编制了考虑地下水渗流与土骨架变形耦合效应的有限元程序,分析了基坑变形以及坑内外超静孔压和土水势的空间分布规律,并与二维分析的结果进行了对比。研究表明,由于空间效应的影响,基坑中部截面处的围护结构水平位移和坑后地表沉降较基坑边缘截面处的围护结构水平位移和坑后地表沉降大,而基坑中部截面处的超静孔压和土水势却较小;与三维有限元分析的结果相比,二维分析时围护结构的水平位移和坑后地表沉降都更大。     

试论软弱筑堤土的固结效应

根据软土的排水固结效应,分析了软土强度随固结效应的增长规律,提出了考虑固结效应的堤基加载方案。同时,结合淮河入海水道近期工程软土堤段的实测资料,分析了堤基土的固结度和强度增长规律,提出了分级填筑施工法。     

Modulus and damping from shaking table tests of reinforced soil walls

The paper presents rational procedures to estimate normalised shear modulus and damping ratio from measured responses of reinforced soil model walls tested in a 1-g shaking table. Displacement measured at the top of the model walls and input base acceleration time histories are used to produce equivalent hysteretic responses of the model walls. Equivalent hysteretic loops at different strain amplitudes are developed and used to calculate normalised modulus degradation curves and damping ratio for the tested model walls. Model wall responses are also analysed using the single degree of freedom (SDOF) model to determine damping ratio and phase difference, and to verify the validity of SDOF model for application with reinforced soil walls.

Results indicate that the normalised shear modulus significantly decreased at the early stage of the base shaking (i.e. γ_s < 0.03%). For example, about 68% and 80% reductions in shear modulus occurred at γ_s = 0.005% and 0.01% respectively. In addition, a 90% reduction in the normalised shear modulus realised at relatively strong input base acceleration (i.e. for γ_s > 0.03%). Minimum damping ratio of 5% to 10% for both model walls was obtained, increased to 15% to 20% at strain amplitude γ_s = 0.3%, and reached higher values thereafter. Finally, dynamic properties determined from the proposed method are compared with experimental and empirical relationships proposed in literature as well as resonant column test results.     

软土非线性固结计算若干表格及应用

为方便非线性固结理论在实际工程中的应用,基于软黏土非线性一维固结理论,给出了能综合考虑软土压缩性和渗透性的非线性特性、自重应力沿深度实际分布、逐渐加荷等影响的软土非线性固结计算若干表格,并通过算例说明了其应用。为工程计算和相关理论研究提供了工具和参考。     

Three-dimensional finite element modelling for consolidation due to groundwater withdrawal in a desaturating anisotropic aquifer system

A poroelastic numerical model is presented to evaluate three-dimensional consolidation due to groundwater withdrawal from desaturating anisotropic porous media. This numerical model is developed based on the fully coupled governing equations for groundwater flow in deforming variably saturated porous media and the Galerkin finite element method. Two different cases of unsaturated aquifers are simulated for the purpose of comparison: a cross-anisotropic soil aquifer, and a corresponding isotropic soil aquifer composed of a geometrically averaged equivalent material. The numerical simulation results show that the anisotropy has a significant effect on the shapes of three-dimensional hydraulic head distribution and displacement vector fields. Such an effect of anisotropy is caused by the uneven partitioning of the hydraulic pumping stress between the vertical and horizontal directions in both groundwater flow field and solid skeleton deformation field. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

温度梯度作用下非饱和土水分迁移研究

为了探明非饱和土中的水分在温度梯度作用下的迁移规律,开展了非饱和土在不同温度梯度作用下的气态水迁移试验和混合态水迁移试验。试验结果表明土样内部的温度场在24 h内均能达到稳态且稳定后的温度场沿土样长度方向线性变化。气态水迁移量和液态水迁移量均随着温度梯度的增加而增加,气态水迁移量的增幅显著大于液态水迁移量的增幅。在气态水迁移中,温度效应随着土样初始含水率的增加而显著增加;在液态水迁移中,温度效应与土样初始含水率的关系不大。最后建立了非饱和土在不同温度梯度作用下,当其水分场接近稳态时,土样内部含水率梯度的表达式,该表达式包含温度梯度和初始含水率两个影响因素。