Settlement Calculation Method for Peat Soil Foundations
Publication: International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 23, Issue 7
Abstract
The calculation of the settlement of a peat soil foundation is based mainly on the formula obtained by data fitting or simply modifying the universal calculation formula. The deformation mechanism reflected by these calculation methods is indistinct. Therefore, several model tests were carried out using the embankment structure of the Dali–Lijiang expressway as a prototype, and the settlement was analyzed with the one-way consolidation deformation and in situ settlement of other researchers. First, the S − logt (S is the deformation) curve of peat soil showed no obvious inverse “S” change, which is different from that of soft soil or mucky soil. According to the S − t curve, the deformation process of peat soil can be divided into three stages. Second, the relationship between the compression modulus and load was analyzed and combined with the settlement calculation results. The compressive modulus between 12.5 and 25 kPa [En(0.125–0.25)] was proposed to be used when calculating the settlement of peat soil foundations by the layerwise summation method. Moreover, the compression modulus of the three consolidation stages was proposed to be used to calculate the settlement of peat soil foundations by the layered sum method. At the same time, the influence of confinement on the compression modulus of the third consolidation stage should be considered and corrected. The accuracy of the settlement calculation method proposed in this paper was higher than the accuracy of the standard layerwise summation method, regardless of whether the horizontal limiting conditions of the standard method are modified.
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Acknowledgments
This paper is supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2022JBZY006), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (51778048, 41801055).
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International Journal of Geomechanics
Volume 23 • Issue 7 • July 2023
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© 2023 American Society of Civil Engineers.
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Received: Jul 7, 2022
Accepted: Feb 19, 2023
Published online: May 5, 2023
Published in print: Jul 1, 2023
Discussion open until: Oct 5, 2023
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