Poroelastic theory of consolidation for saturated soil incorporating gravitational body forces

Soil consolidation is a transient process by which soil volume is decreased due to the coupling between deformation of a porous medium and interstitial fluid flows. The effect of body force has been conventionally ignored in the consolidation theory of poroelasticity for saturated soils. The objective of this research is to develop the consolidation theory of poroelasticity for saturated soil which incorporates provided with gravitational body forces. In this research, based on the poroelastic theory of consolidation developed by Lo et al. (2005), the gravity effect is well taken into account in the diffusion equation that feature the excess pore water pressure as dependent variables, thus leading to additional first-order time-derivative terms. Considering a one-dimensional condition with external loads, numerical methods will be used to solve those equations with consolidation problem. The comparisons of the results with body forces and without body forces reveal that variations in the excess pore water pressure due to the existence of body forces increase with soil depth and more total settlement is induced when body forces is considered.