Piecewise-linear model for electro-osmosis-surcharge preloading coupled consolidation

A numerical model for consolidation of soils treated by electro-osmosis-surcharge preloading coupled process is proposed. The model employs piecewise linear finite difference method to account for the nonlinear variation of physical and electro-chemical properties of soils during consolidation with large deformation. The physical and electro-chemical properties of soils include void ratio, coefficients of compressibility and permeability, electrical potential and resistance. FORTRAN programming package is used to implement the computation of the model and verify the model against analytical exact solutions. It is found that numerical results derived from the model are in good agreement with the analytical solutions in relation to an identical scenario of small-deformation consolidation. A laboratory model test is conducted to further verify the validity of the proposed model in simulating the consolidation process of soils. The results show that the approximations of consolidation settlement obtained by using EC2 are in good agreement with the measurements of the model tests.