CONSOLIDATION &

SETTLEMENT
 EXPERIMENTS ON CONSOLIDATION AND
SETTLEMENT

TOTAL SETTLEMENT (VOLUME CHANGE)

TIME REQUIRED FOR THE SETTLEMENT OF
COMPRESSIBLE LAYER
 Soil
Elastic or Plastic?
 SOIL COMPACTION
It is a dynamic process
Compaction is almost instantaneous
Densification is due to reduction of air voids
Soil is always unsaturated
For a specific compactive effort densification
takes place only up to certain limiting water
content called optimum moisture content
Compaction is done before the construction of
structure
 COMPACTION

• Soil is more permeable to air than to

water.

• Compaction process removes large

percentage of air, but a significant
percentage of water may remain.
Compaction increases the density of the soil and
improves its ability to bear a load. Compaction is
affected by a number of factors:
Soil type (clay, sand, silt, level of organic matter, etc.)

Soil characteristics (uniformity, gradient, plasticity,

etc.)
Soil thickness

Method of compaction

Moisture content at the time of compaction.

 SOIL CONSOLIDATION
It is a static process

Consolidation is a static process

Consolidation is due to expulsion of pore water from

voids
Soil is considered to be completely saturated

The process of consolidation starts as soon as the

construction work begins
 Consolidation
The process, involving a gradual compression
occurring simultaneously with a flow of water
out of the mass and with a gradual transfer of
the applied pressure from the pore water to
the mineral skeleton is called consolidation.
Water Table (W.T.)

Expulsion of
the water

Voids
Solids
 Settlement of Soil
Total Soil Settlement =
Elastic Settlement + Consolidation
Settlement

Stotal = Se + Sc
 ELASTIC SETTLEMENT OR
IMMEDIATE SETTLEMENT

Occurs immediately after loading.

Occurs due to distortion at constant
volume
 Primary Consolidation
Volume change is due to reduction in pore water
pressure

Secondary Consolidation
Volume change is due to the rearrangement of
the soil particles
PRIMARY CONSOLIDATION
PRIMARY CONSOLIDATION
SECONDARY CONSOLIDATION
SETTLEMENT
 Soil's response to the Loading

Is felt upto a depth of 2 to 3 times the width of foundation



The imposed stresses causes compression and decrease in

volume resulting in settlement of the structure
 Soil Engineering Problems

Type1:
No possibility of stress being large enough to
exceed the shear strength of the soil. (But the
strains lead to serious problem leading to
displacement of individual grains causing
settlements within soil mass).
Type2:
Danger of shearing stresses exceeding the shear
strength of soils. (stability problems)
 OEDOMETER TEST
(CONSOLIDOMETER)
 COEFFICIENT OF COMPRESSIBILITY

The ratio of change in void ratio per unit

change in pressure
 COEEFICIENT OF VOLUME CHANGE
(VOLUME COMPRESSIBILITY)

Change in volume of soil mass per unit of its

original volume due to unit change in
pressure
 COMPRESSION INDEX

Gradient of virgin compression curve

drawn from the results of consolidation
test
EMPIRICAL FORMULAE
 PRECONSOLIDATION PRESSURE

The following figure shows

Example -1 Calculate the Preconsolidation Pressure
Terzaghi's One Dimensional
Consolidation Theory
LABORATORY CONMSOLIDATION
TEST
 References
 “Problems in Soil Mechanics and
Foundation Engineering”, Debashis
Moitra
 “Soil Mechanics”R.F.Craig
 “Advanced Soil Mechanics”, Braja.M.Das

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