Consolidation settlement of a multi-layer soil with strip loading Abaqus

Description

Consolidation settlement of a multi-layer soil with strip loading Abaqus

This example been chosen from Example 4.8 Sam Helwany book

In this example, we intend to simulate the consolidation settlement of a multi-layer soil with strip loading in the Abaqus software

The soil is composed of 7 layers , the top layer is sand and the lower layers are clay.The thickness of each layer is 1 meter

The soil is composed of 7 layers and properties of each layer are quite different with another layer

The soil is exposed to a strip loading of 100 Kilo Pascal

In this example , Cam Clay model has been utilized in order to define the properties of clay plasticity

The problem is done in 3 steps , in the step1 that is Geostatic step , the effective weight of soil will be applied using the Body Force

In the step 2 one strip loading of 100 kilo Pascal will be applied to the soil

The step 3 is a consolidation step

If the situ vertical effective stress in the center of the clay layer is less than the pre-consolidation pressure , we conclude that the clay layer is Over-consolidated or the same OC

The clay layer is divided into six equal sublayers. The Cam clay model parameters for each clay sublayer are given in Table 4.6

In this problem, geostatic stresses are defined for each layer

Consolidation settlement of soil in Sam Helwany book

Comparison between Abaqus results and Sam Helwany book results