Conte, E. & Troncone, A. (2008). Géotechnique 58, No. 1, 37–44 [doi: 10.1680/geot.2008.58.1.

37]

Soil layer response to pore pressure variations at the boundary

E . C O N T E * a n d A . T RO N C O N E *

A simple solution procedure is presented to obtain read-
ily the transient response of saturated soil layers under
one-dimensional conditions, when general pore pressure
variations with time occur at the boundary. This proce-
dure makes use of some analytical expressions derived in
this study in conjunction with the Fourier series. The
solution is used to analyse the experimental results from
laboratory tests and field measurements concerning pore
pressure and settlement rate, with the objective of evalu-
ating representative values of the coefficient of swelling/
consolidation of the soil.
KEYWORDS: consolidation; groundwater; pore pressures;
settlement; theoretical analysis; time dependence
Une procédure à solution simple, permettant d’obtenir la
réponse en transitoire de couches de sol saturé dans des
conditions monodimensionnelles, comportant des varia-
tions de la pression interstitielle générale sur la limite,
est présentée. Cette procédure fait usage de certaines
expressions analytiques dérivées dans la présente étude,
conjointement avec le spectre de série de Fourier. La
solution est utilisée pour analyser les résultats expérimen-
taux des essais de laboratoire et de mesures sur le terrain
concernant la pression interstitielle et la vitesse de tasse-
ment, dans le but d’évaluer des vapeurs représentatives
du coefficient de gonflement /consolidation du terrain.

INTRODUCTION ANALYTICAL SOLUTION TO THE GOVERNING

The pore water pressure variations with time that occur at EQUATION
the boundary of a saturated, fine-grained soil layer generally Under the same assumptions as Terzaghi’s one-dimen-
cause a transient process that involves water flow along with sional consolidation theory (Terzaghi, 1925), the equation
swelling and/or compression of the soil. This occurs, for governing the generation and dissipation of excess pore
example, in a clayey soil layer owing to significant seasonal water pressure in a saturated soil layer is
fluctuations of groundwater, or to excessive pumping or
recharging of water in a contiguous aquifer (Fig. 1(a)), or @ 2 u @u
also because of raising or lowering of the water level in a cvs ¼ (1)
@z 2 @t
river that directly supplies a highly permeable soil layer
(Fig. 1(b)). As a result of these events, excess pore water where z denotes the spatial coordinate, and t is time; u is
pressures are generated within the soil layers with low
permeability, whose evolution with time generally does not
reflect the changes occurring at the boundary. Moreover,
since the total stresses generally vary slightly when the pore Sand
u
pressures vary at the boundary, a change in pore pressure at
a given depth and time corresponds essentially to a change t
in effective stress, and consequently soil deformations occur.
A preliminary analysis of such a transient process may be
Clay
conducted using the analytical solutions presented by Cars-
law & Jaeger (1959) to solve one-dimensional problems of
heat conduction in solids due to a sinusoidal variation of
temperature at the boundary (Leroueil, 2001). However, if
more general boundary conditions have to be considered, Sand
numerical techniques such as the finite difference method or
the finite element method should be used (Gambolati & (a)
Freeze, 1973; Laflamme & Leroueil, 2003).
In this paper, a simple calculation procedure is developed
to analyse the one-dimensional response of saturated soil
layers to pore pressure variations at the boundary described
by a general time-dependent function. This procedure makes
Sand
use of some analytical expressions derived in the present u
study in conjunction with the Fourier series. As a practical t
application, the proposed solution is used to analyse a num-
ber of case studies documented in the literature, with the
main objective of evaluating representative values of the Clay
coefficient of swelling or consolidation of the soil from
laboratory or field measurements.

Manuscript received 21 March 2006; revised manuscript accepted Impervious

19 October 2007. (b)
Discussion on this paper closes on 1 July 2008, for further details
see p. ii. Fig. 1. Examples in which pore water pressure variations with
* University of Calabria, Rende, Italy. time occur at the boundary of a clay layer

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