CENTRIFUGE MODEL TESTS AND FEM ANALYSES FOCUSING ON MECHANICAL BEHAVIOR OF SOFT GROUND BY COMBINING VACUUM CONSOLIDATION METHOD AND EMBANKMENT LOADING

Abstract

Vacuum consolidation methods allow a soft ground to be consolidated without the shear deformation of the ground. That is, the safe construction of an embankment can be achieved by combining a vacuum consolidation method and embankment loading. The stabilizing effect of vacuum consolidation methods has been verified through many construction examples, and it has been reported that measuring or pre-dicting the pore pressure through on-site numerical analyses and experiments is important to evaluating the stabilization of the ground. In this study, centrifuge model experiments and numerical analyses focusing on the mechanical behavior around the drain in a soft ground were conducted to investigate the effect of both the period preceding vacuum consolidation before the embankment construction and the embankment speed on the pore water pressure. As a result, the relationship between the preliminary period of vacuum consolidation and the embankment speed, which can suppress the increase in pore water pressure due to embankment loading and has a stabilizing effect on the ground, was clarified. Furthermore, the local consolidation behavior around the drain was clarified.