FINITE ELEMENT ANALYSIS OF CONSOLIDATION FOLLOWING UNDRAINED DEFORMATION

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to develop a finite element method for consolidation following undrained deformation under the following assumptions : Soil is inhomogeneous, anisotropically elastic with respect to the effective stress, and saturated by incompressible water; deformation of soil does not depend on pore water pressure but on the effective stress; water flows through soil according to Darcy's law. The paper is of a theoretical nature.The finite element method previously developed by Sandhu and Wilson (1969) and Yokoo, Yamagata, and Nagaoka (1971) is shown to be inapplicable to problems of consolidation following undrained deformation because of the inherent continuity requirement of water head. A new variational principle for consolidation is derived in which water head may be piecewise continuous, and the finite element technique is applied to the principle in order to develop an effective numerical method for the problems.