• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.5-16
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• 2009

Preconsolidation stress is one of the important design parameters in soft soils because the behavior of saturated soft soils changes dramatically at the preconsolidation stress. For the estimation of preconsolidation stress, the global vertical settlement without considering micro strain behavior has been considered. The purpose of this study is to propose and verify a new method called the "shear wave velocity method" for determination of the preconsolidation stress reflecting on particle behavior at the small-strain. In this study, the undisturbed soft soils obtained at Busan, Incheon and Gwangyang in Korea were used. The oedometer cell incoporated with the bender elements is used for the consolidation tests under the $K_0$ condition. The preconsolidation stress determined by the proposed method is compared with that estimated by Casagrande (e-log p'), Sridharan (log (1+e)-log p'), and Onitsuka (In(1+e)-log p') methods. This study suggests that the shear wave velocity method may determine simply the preconsolidation stress with considering the small-strain behavior.