Secondary Consolidation Tutorial 11-1

Secondary Consolidation (Creep)

When a load is applied to a low permeability soil (clay), you will see a
period of primary consolidation as excess pore pressures dissipate. With
many types of soil, you may see continuing settlement even after all
excess pore pressures have dissipated. This is generally known as
secondary settlement, secondary consolidation or creep. This tutorial
shows how to simulate creep with Settle3D.

The finished model can be found in the Tutorial 11 Secondary

Consolidation.s3z file in the Examples > Tutorials folder in your
Settle3D installation folder.

Topics covered

Staged loads

Time-dependent consolidation

Secondary consolidation - standard

Secondary consolidation - Mesri

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 Secondary Consolidation Tutorial 11-2

Defining the model - simple load

If you have not already done so, run Settle3D by double-clicking on the
Settle3D icon in your installation folder. Or from the Start menu, select
Programs Rocscience Settle3D 2.0 Settle3D.

Project Settings
Open the Project Settings dialog from the toolbar or the Analysis
menu and make sure the General tab is selected. Define the stress units
as being Metric, stress as kPa and the settlement units as Centimeters.

Select the Time-dependent Consolidation Analysis checkbox. A message

will appear informing you that the groundwater analysis option will be
turned on because it is required for consolidation analysis. Click OK to
close the warning. Select Time Units as Years and permeability units as
m/year. The Project Settings Dialog should look like this:

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Click on the Stages tab and fill in the stages as shown:

Click OK to exit the dialog.

Assigning the Water Level

Select Groundwater > Add Piezometric Line. Keep the default value
of 0 m, and click OK. Click on the Select All button in the Assign
Piezometric Line to Soils dialog. Click OK to close the dialog.

Adding the Load

For simplicity, we will assume a rectangular load. For the first part of the
tutorial we will simply add the load at time 0 and observe the resulting
consolidation and creep.

Select Add Rectangular Load from the toolbar or the Loads menu. Set
the dimensions to 10 m 10 m. Leave all other values as default.

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Click OK to close the dialog.

You now need to specify the location of the rectangular load in the Plan
View. Enter the coordinates 0, 0 in the prompt line. Press F2 to Zoom All.
The model should look like this:

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Soil Layers
To define the soil properties, select Soil Properties from the toolbar or
the Soils menu. For simplicity, we will assume that there is only one soil
type present. For Soil Property 1, change the name to Clay. Leave all
default values except for Cv and Cvr. Change these to 5 m2/year. The
dialog should look like this:

We will leave secondary consolidation off for now to see how the model
behaves without creep. We will turn it on later in the tutorial. Click OK
to close the dialog.

To change the thickness of the soil layer select Soil Layers from the
Soils menu. Set the layer thickness to 10 m as shown:

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 Secondary Consolidation Tutorial 11-6

Click on the Drainage Conditions button, and make sure that the
Drained Ground Surface checkbox is selected in the Soil Drainage
Conditions dialog. Click OK to close the dialog.

Settlement without creep

To observe the settlement for this load, we will add a query point at the
center of the load.

From the Query menu, select Add Query Point. You will see the Query
Point dialog as shown.

Leave the default choice of Automatic. This will generate subdivisions

such that the discretization is denser near the ground surface where the
high stress gradients are likely to be.

Click OK and the cursor will become a cross-hairs in the Plan View. You
now need to specify the location of the Query Point. Click on the center of
the square load.

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In the 3D View you should now see a query line descending from the
center of the load. By default, the Total Settlement will be plotted along
the line (if not, change the plot type to Total Settlement with the pull
down menu in the toolbar). Rotate and zoom in to better look at the
results.

For stage 0, you will see no settlement since the pore water is initially
supporting the load. Click through the other stages and you will see
increasing settlement with time as the pore pressure dissipates. The plot
for the sixth stage (20 years) should look like this:

TIP: you can maximize the 3D view by double clicking in the 3D view
window. Double-click again to return to the split-screen view.

TIP 2: you can show the settlement value for the query point in the Plan
View by right clicking on the query point, choosing Query Display
Options, and checking the box for Show Values.

You can see below the legend in the sidebar that the maximum
settlement is 20.7 cm after 20 years. After 20 years there is no more
settlement. The settlement remains at 20.7 cm for Stage 7 (50 years) and
Stage 8 (100 years).

Change the plot to Excess Pore Water Pressure using the pull down menu
in the toolbar. You will see that after 10 years, the excess pore pressure is
almost 0, suggesting that the material has almost finished consolidating
at this time. For 20 years and later, the excess pore pressure is
essentially 0 at all points.

Settlement with creep

Strain due to creep, or secondary consolidation, is calculated in Settle3D
with the following equation for a normally consolidated material:

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 Secondary Consolidation Tutorial 11-8

C t
S log 2
1 ep t1

where:

C is the material dependent coefficient of secondary

consolidation (input by the user)

ep is the void ratio at the end of primary consolidation

t1 is the time at the end of primary consolidation

t2 is the current time

The time values, t1 and t2 are measured from the time that the load is
placed. For an overconsolidated material, C is replaced by Cr.

To enable secondary consolidation in Settle3D, click on the button for

Define Soil Properties to see the Soil Properties dialog. For the Clay,
select the Secondary Consolidation checkbox. Leave the method as
Standard and set C to 0.03 and Cr to 0.01.

Close the Soil Properties dialog by pressing OK.

Now plot Total Settlement and click through the stages. You will see that
the Total Settlement at 100 years is now 38.3 cm. This is due to the
secondary consolidation or creep.

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Change the plot to show only Secondary Settlement using the pull down
menu in the tool bar. If you click through the stages, you will see very
little secondary consolidation at early times. As time goes on, secondary
consolidation starts near the surface and gradually moves downwards.
After 20 years, you can see that the entire soil layer is experiencing creep.
This behaviour is due to the fact that secondary consolidation only starts
when primary consolidation has finished as described in the box below.

Advanced options for secondary consolidation

Go to Analysis Project Settings and click on the Advanced tab. You

will see two options relating to Secondary consolidation.

You can specify when secondary consolidation starts by setting the value
for 'Start of secondary consolidation (% of primary)'. The default is 95%,
meaning that when the excess pore pressure in any portion of the soil
drops to 5% of the initial excess pore pressure (when the load was
applied), then secondary consolidation starts. This is necessary because
the soil never reaches 100% consolidation, so some arbitrary value is
required to let the program know when primary consolidation is
considered finished.

The other Advanced option allows for the specification of stress required
to initiate secondary consolidation. The standard equation for secondary
consolidation does not include a stress term, meaning that, in theory,
creep may occur even under very small loads. This is obviously not
realistic so a 'cutoff' is specified in Settle3D to disable creep at low stress
levels. By default, if the applied load is less than 1% of the initial (in-situ)
stress then creep will not occur.

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You can view the effects of this option by generating a grid of Field Points
(Grid Auto Field Point Grid). You will see that outside of the load,
there is less Secondary Consolidation than there is under the load.

You can get a more detailed view of secondary settlement with time by
plotting a graph. Right click on the query point and select Graph Query.
For Plot type choose Data vs. Stage Time. For Data to Plot choose
Secondary settlement. Leave the depth at 0.

Click OK. You will now see a graph of secondary settlement versus time.

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It may seem strange that secondary settlement starts almost

immediately in the Settle3D model. Most texts explain that secondary
consolidation starts after primary consolidation is complete so you
would not expect to see any secondary consolidation for many years (see
for example Holtz and Kovacs, 1981). However, most texts show results
from laboratory oedometer tests in which the entire soil column finishes
primary consolidation at the same time. In the field, this is generally not
the case. In the Settle3D model, the top boundary is drained, so the top
part of the soil finishes primary consolidation fairly quickly. Secondary
consolidation then starts. As more of the soil becomes drained, more parts
of the soil experience secondary consolidation.

This also explains why the graph does not show the expected logarithmic
relationship between settlement and time at least between 0 and 20
years. As time goes by, the rate of secondary consolidation in any given
section of the soil column decreases. However, this is balanced by the fact
that more sections of soil start to experience secondary consolidation.
After 20 years, all of the soil has finished primary consolidation and the
graph exhibits the expected logarithmic relationship.

Note that some researchers believe that creep and primary consolidation
occur simultaneously (see for example Robinson, 2003). Settle3D does not
calculate secondary consolidation in this way unless you choose the
Koppejan material type. See the Theory manual for more details.

Staged Load

Secondary consolidation only occurs after primary consolidation is

complete. Therefore if the load changes, there will be a change in excess
pore pressure and creep should stop until the excess pore pressure again
approaches 0. We can show how this works in Settle3D by staging the
load.

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 Secondary Consolidation Tutorial 11-12

If you are still looking at the graph, click on the tab at the bottom to go
back to the Plan/3D View. Right click on the square load and select Load
Properties. Select the Advanced Staging checkbox. Set the load factor for
stages 6, 7 and 8 to 0.5.

This removes half the load after 20 years essentially simulating a

preload or surcharge load. The purpose of such a preload would be to
consolidate the material to reduce any further settlements during future
construction (see the Preload tutorial for a more detailed example). Click
OK to close the dialog.

Now click on the tab at the bottom to show the graph of secondary
settlement versus time. The plot should look like this:

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You can see that at 20 years when the load is halved, the secondary
settlement stops briefly and then continues on at a reduced rate until 100
years. The rate of secondary consolidation is slower after half the load is
removed because the material is now overconsolidated, so Cr is used in
the strain calculation. The amount of secondary settlement at 100 years
is 10.2 cm - about 40% less than the value of 17.6 cm obtained with a
constant load.

Mesri Formulation

Terzaghi, Peck and Mesri (1996) describe a slightly different method for
calculating secondary consolidation. With this method, a value for C / Cc
is specified. Therefore in our example with C = 0.03 and Cc = 0.3, we
need to set a value of C / Cc = 0.1. This automatically assumes that Cr /
Cr = 0.1 as well.

Go back to the Plan/3D View. Select Soil Properties from the Soils
menu. Under Secondary Consolidation, for the method choose Mesri. Set
the value for Ca/Cc to 0.1. Set the Material Type to Soft Clay as shown.

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Click OK to close the dialog.

Now click the tab to show the plot of secondary consolidation versus time.

You can see that up to 20 years, the plot is exactly the same as it was for
the Standard method (the secondary settlement at 20 years is 7.35 cm).
The difference in the Mesri method becomes apparent when we consider
unloading after a surcharge.

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At 20 years, the surcharge is removed. There is now a period of no

secondary consolidation, followed by a slowly increasing amount of creep.
The total amount of secondary consolidation is 7.99 cm. This compares to
10.2 cm using the Standard method. The important number is the
amount of consolidation that occurs after the preload is removed. With
the Mesri method, 7.99 7.35 = about 0.64 cm, indicating that the
preload worked well and that not much secondary settlement occurs after
its removal. With the Standard method, the relative secondary
consolidation after the load is removed is 10.2 7.35 = 2.85 cm, almost
three times more.

TIP: you can accurately determine the relative amount of settlement

between two stages by right clicking on the tab for the start stage (in this
case, Stage 6) and selecting Set as Reference Stage. All values will now be
given relative to this stage. Right click on any stage tab and select Reset
Reference Stage to undo this operation.

The Mesri formulation makes two assumptions that are not accounted for
in the standard method:

1. There is a delay in the start of secondary consolidation after

primary consolidation has finished (for a load removal). It is
assumed that there is a period of upward 'secondary rebound'
before downward secondary consolidation starts. In Settle3D, the
amount of upward secondary rebound is assumed to be negligible,
however this still delays the onset of downward secondary
consolidation.

2. After surcharging, the parameter C used to compute the

secondary settlement is not constant with time. This Csurcharge or
C is much less than the input C but gradually increases with
time. The exact nature of the non-linearity depends on the chosen
soil type in the Soil Properties dialog. See the Theory manual for
more details.

This concludes the Secondary Consolidation tutorial. You may now exit
the Settle3D program.

Additional Exercise

It is unlikely that any engineer will add a preload and wait 20 years for
the soil to consolidate. Repeat this exercise and add wick drains to speed
up consolidation. You can also try adding a Time Point to accurately
determine when the soil is 95% consolidated.

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References

Holtz, R.D. and Kovacs, W.D., 1981. An Introduction to Geotechnical

Engineering, Chapter 9.7 - Evaluation of Secondary Settlement, Prentice-
Hall Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.

Robinson, R.G., 2003. A study on the beginning of secondary

consolidation, Journal of Testing and Evaluation, 31, 1-10.

Terzaghi, K., Peck, R.B. and Mesri, G., 1996. Soil mechanics in
engineering practice, 3rd ed., Wiley, New York.

Settle3D v.3.0 Tutorial Manual