COMPRESSIBILITY

- Irfan Zafri
- Goa Yong Yee
- Tan De Yao Group 6
- Zafri Saiful
 DEFINITION
• Soil compressibility is the ease with which a soil decreases in volume when
subjected to a mechanical load. The process that describes the decrease in
soil volume (soil densification) under an externally applied load is defined as
compression.
• Compression of soils is due to exclusion of air or water from the void
spaces, rearrangement of soil particles, compression and deformation of
solid particles, and compression of the liquid and gas within the voids. Soil
compaction involves an expulsion of air without significant change in the
amount of water in the soil mass.
• The compression of saturated soil under steady static pressure is termed as
consolidation which is completely due to expulsion of water from the voids
• Compression of soil layers lead to soil settlement and that is caused
by:
• Deformation of soil particles
• Relocation of soil particles,
• Expulsion( flow out) of water or air from void spaces
 CONSOLIDATION
• Soil Consolidation refers to the process in which the volume of a saturated
(partially or fully) soil decreases due to an applied stress
• When a load is applied in a low permeability soil, it is initially carried by the
water that exists in the porous of a saturated soil resulting in a rapid increase
of pore water pressure
• The increment of applied stress that causes consolidation may be due to
either natural loads (e.g. sedimentation processes), or human-made loads (e.g.
the construction of a building or an embankment above a soil mass) or even
the decrease of the ground water table.
 Compressibility and consolidation can be
distinguished as:
• compressibility — volume changes in a soil when subjected to pressure
amounts of settlement
• consolidation — rate of volume change with time to produce a given
settlement