A large-strain consolidation model incorporating vacuum pressure growth propagation

A large-strain consolidation model incorporating vacuum pressure growth propagation (VPGP) under vacuum preloading is proposed. A finite-difference method was developed to predict the vacuum consolidation behaviour. The proposed model can be degenerated into the existing model when the vacuum pressure growth factor reaches 10/day. The rationality of the proposed model was verified and compared with experimental results. The effect of VPGP on the consolidation behaviour of two typical soils was then analysed. A growth in vacuum pressure has a significant effect on consolidation, especially for a growth factor in the range 0–0.5/day. The radial and vertical propagation of vacuum pressure obviously slowed down the dissipation of excess pore-water pressure (EPWP). The maximum difference reached 48% and 37.5% when the radial attenuation factor and the vertical residual factor were in the range 0–0.1/cm and 0.25–1.00, respectively. The maximum value of the EPWP difference of two typical soils reached 65 kPa.