Settlement

Modules:

Spread footing
Settlement

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Main topics of this presentation:

What is settlement ?
Components of settlement
Compressibility of soil
Oedometer and Triaxial testing
Memory of soil
Methods of calculation in GEO5
Limitation of deformation zone

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The total vertical deformation

(e.g. at the surface) resulting from the load is
called settlement.

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The soil will compress because:

* deformation of soil grains
* compression of air and water in the voids
* squeezing out of water and air from voids

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The total settlement st of a loaded soil has three

components:

st = si + sc + ss
si immediate or initial settlement
sc primary or consolidation
settlement (time dependent)
ss secondary settlement (compression)

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Initial settlement

Result of undrained shear deformations

(distortion), or in some cases contained
plastic flow caused by three dimensional
loading.

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Primary settlement
Typically occurs in saturated fine grained soils.
Cohesionless soils typically do not have long term settlement.
The rate of settlement depends on the pore water
drainage - water slowly flows out of the soils.

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Secondary settlement (creep)

Occurs at constant effective stress and with no
subsequent changes in pore water pressure.
Secondary compression does not start until after
primary settlement is complete.
Can be described as deformation of solids grains.

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H :
1) f( / )
2) f( / e )

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When soil layers covering a large area are

loaded vertically, the compression can be
assumed to be one dimensional.
To simulate one dimensional compression we
used oedometer.
To simulate 2D or 3D compression we used
triaxial apparatus.

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Oedometer

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Triaxial
apparatus

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Soil has a memory,the stress and other changes

that have occured during their history are
preserved in the soil structure

OCR =

p reco n so lid a tio n

existin g

OCR < 1 underconsolidated (e.g. Deposit by man)

OCR = 1 normally consolidated (preconsolidation
pressur is equals to the existing)
OCR > 1 overconsolidated (preconsolidation
pressure is greater than existing)

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Methods of settlement calculation in GEO5

Oedometric modulus
Compression constant
Compression index
NEN (Buismann, Ladde)
Soft Soil model
Janbu theory
The increase in stress in the soil due to boundary
or surface load is estimate according
Boussinesque theory

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Oedometric modulus
nonlinear f( /

) - Eoed from oedometer

linear f( / ) Eoed from Edef

2

2
E = Eoed = Eoed 1

unfitting for overconsolidated soils

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Compression constant
linear 1) C f(ln () / ) - oedometer
f(log () / )
2) C10
unfitting for overconsolidated soils
less independent on the load varying

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Compression index
nonlinear Cc

f( / e ) oedometer

checking of the porosity

determination of the initial soil state

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NEN (Buisman, Ladde)

Suited for normal consolidated and
overconsolidated soils, parameters from
oedometer or in-situ testing
Calculated secondary settlement you have to
know time of primary consolidation, time
dependent parameter C

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Soft Soil model

nonlinear f( /

) from triaxial apparatus

suited for clays

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Janbu theory
nonlinear f( /

specific parameters j,m from literature

j,m, depend on the secant deformation modulus
suited for overconsolidation soils

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Structural strength

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Percentage of origin stress

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