Assessment of Consolidation Behavior of Golden Horn Marine Dredged Material

Polluted sea bottom sediments from Golden Horn in Istanbul have been dredged and stored on land at a disposal site. Reclamation of the disposal site was highly dependent on prediction of self-weight consolidation behavior of the dredged material, which is analyzed numerically using software which employs a nonlinear finite strain solution algorithm (Fox and Berles 1997). The material parameters needed for the numerical model are determined using a seepage-induced consolidation testing system and prediction of the numerical model is tested against experimental observations in a slurry consolidation model tank. The numerical modeling of the field behavior at the disposal site could be successfully accomplished using sediment property data from the seepage-induced consolidation test.