What Is Consolidation?

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Consolidation refers to the settlement or compression that soils undergo as a response of applying stress onto it. It is the time-related process of increasing the density of a saturated soil by squeezing some water out of the voids. As a result, there is a reduction in volume of soils; causing the soil particles pack together more tightly.
The compression of the soil occurs when there is an increasing of effective stress. Therefore, a pore- water pressure and a void ratio decrease when the effective stress goes up. The spring here have the same behavior as a soil skeleton. The stiffer the spring, the less it will be compressed. The stiff soil will have less compression than a soft soil. The opening size of the valve is similar to the permeability of the soil. The larger the opening, the shorter it takes for the water to flow out. …show more content…

The friction of the sample is enhanced by the boundary effect from the ring. That friction will cause a reduced stress acted on the soil during loading.
• The mechanical lever arm system will easily affect the measurement due to the sudden shock when the load is applied.
• The other limitation of this method is that no means is available for measuring the pore water pressure during testing even though the dissipation of excess pore water pressure is one of the factor control the consolidation process. Change of thickness of the specimen is the only data that used for estimating the compressibility.
• It is one-dimensional consolidation test and there is no consideration of influence of lateral stresses on deformation properties.

The predicted rates of settlement using Cv from the oedometer tests are usually less than those actual rates of settlement of site due to the influence of the soil macro –fabric on drainage behavior. For example, laminations, layers of silt and fine sand, silt – filled fissures, organic inclusion and root

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