Generalized Consolidation Theory for Anisotropic Saturated Soils

Abstract

Darcy’s law of fluid flow and the stress equilibrium equations of anisotropic media, coupled with the mass conservation equations of fluid, are studied on the basis of the model of constitutive equations for both effective stress and porosity of anisotropic saturated soils, in which a new compressible model of soils and anisotropic effects are introduced. This technical note gives a generalized consolidation equation of anisotropic saturated soils. The results show that for isotropic soils, the consolidation equation derived degenerated into Biot’s theory in some approximation, and in the one-dimensional case, there were some subtle differences among Biot’s theory, Terzaghi’s theory, and the current theory. In the final part of this technical note, a set of generalized consolidation equations of orthotropic saturated soils are deduced, and some simple solutions are obtained.