Numerical Analysis on Effects of Horizontal Drain Arrangement of Vacuum Consolidation

수평배수재 배열의 진공압밀효과에 대한 수치해석

This paper is results of numerical works of investigating effects of horizontal drain arrangements on vacuum consolidation. Extensive numerical analyses were carried out to find the appropriate arrangements of horizontal drain of vacuum consolidation. Commercially available program of CRISP, well known to be good to modelling the behavior of clay material, was used Cam-clay model, based on the Critical State of Soil Mechanics(CSSM), was used to simulate the geotechnical engineering behavior of clay. Model test results carried out previously in the laboratory were compared with numerically estimated results and it was found that results about consolidational settlement with times were in good agreements. Based on this confirmation, parametric numerical study was performed to investigate effects of horizontal drain arrangements on vacuum consolidation with changing the vertical and horizontal spacings between drains for the given soil properties and vacuum. The effect of distance of drain located in top layer from the surface of the ground on the settlement due to vacuum was also investigated. As a results of numerical analyses, appropriate arrangements of horizontal drain to maximize the consolidation settlement due to vacuum were found. The mechanism of vacuum consolidation about the vacuum pressures being transferred to the effective stresses around drains was also evaluated.