Study on Determining Consolidation Parameters of Soft Clay Ground improved by Sand Pile

Sand pile method, such as sand drain method and sand compaction pile method, has been popularly used as an improved method for soft clay grounds. The effect of accelerating consolidation of soft clay grounds has been evaluated with Barren's solution. The consolidation behavior of soft clay ground with sand piles strongly depends on both the nonlinear mechanical interaction between sand piles and surrounding clays and the degradation permeability of clays. In this paper a method of determining consolidation parameters of soft clay ground with sand drains by using Barren's solution was proposed through a series of numerical simulations. Through the method, the change in both volume compressibility and permeability during consolidation was reasonably evaluated.