One-dimensional nonlinear consolidation of multi-layered soil

by dierential quadrature method

R.P. Chen
*
, W.H. Zhou, H.Z. Wang, Y.M. Chen
Department of Civil Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, PR China
Received 22 March 2004; received in revised form 2 April 2005; accepted 26 May 2005
Abstract
In this paper the dierential quadrature method (DQM) is introduced into the analysis of one-dimensional nonlinear consolida-
tion of multi-layered soil with partially drained boundaries and arbitrary loading condition. The eect of initial eective stress dis-
tribution is taken into account. The convergence and accuracy study shows that the DQM is able to give highly accurate and stable
calculations. Due to the uniform matrix structure of the solution, DQM is easy to program, and also various complicated factors of
the consolidation problem can be considered.
2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Multi-layered soil; One-dimensional consolidation; Dierential quadrature method; Nonlinear consolidation theory
1. Introduction
It is essential to study the one-dimensional consolida-
tion problem by taking both the nonlinearity and layered
characteristics of natural soil into account. In the 1960s,
researchers became interested in the nonlinear consolida-
tion behavior of soft soil. The general theories of one-
dimensional nite nonlinear consolidation of thin and
thick homogeneous layers were given by Gibson et al.
[1,2]. Many eorts have been made to obtain analytical
and numerical solutions based upon dierent kinds of
one-dimensional consolidation theories. Davis and Ray-
mond [3] derived an analytical solution for a constant
loading case based on the assumptions that the decrease
in permeability is proportional to the decrease in com-
pressibility during the consolidation process, and that
the distribution of initial eective pressures is uniform
in the thickness direction. Barden and Berry [4] and Mes-
ri and Rokhsar [5] solved the similar problem by means
of the nite dierence method; the commonly accepted
e-log eective stress and e-log permeability laws were em-
ployed. Xie et al. [6] developed an analytical solution for
the one dimensional consolidation problem associated
with time-dependent loading on the basis of the work
in [3]. Considering the layered characteristics of soil, Li
et al. [7,8] developed a semi-analytical solution for one-
dimensional nonlinear consolidation by assuming that
the coecient of consolidation remains constant during
every discrete time interval. More recently, Xie et al. [9]
derived an analytical solution for one-dimensional non-
linear consolidation of double-layered soil for time-
dependent loading; they employed the same assumptions
as proposed by Davis and Raymond [3] except for the
loading condition.
The nonlinear consolidation of a layered soil is gov-
erned by partial dierential equations which are dicult
to solve using an analytical solution. Numerical solu-
tions such as the nite dierence method (FDM) and
the nite element method (FEM) are traditionally em-
ployed. These two methods approximate the partial
derivatives of a function at a grid point only using a lim-
ited number of function values in the vicinity of that grid
0266-352X/$ - see front matter 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.compgeo.2005.05.003
*
Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 571 8795 2267; fax: +86 571 8795
2269.
E-mail address: chenrp@zju.edu.cn (R.P. Chen).
www.elsevier.com/locate/compgeo
Computers and Geotechnics 32 (2005) 358369
point. The accuracy and stability of these methods de-
pend on the size of the grid spacing. In the early
1970s, Bellman and Casti [10] and Bellman et al. [11]
introduced the dierential quadrature method (DQM)
as a rapid means for nding the solution of ordinary
and partial dierential equations. The fundamental idea
of the DQM is to approximate various derivatives of a
function by means of a polynomial expressed as a
weighted linear sum of function values at all grid points.
It has been claimed in numerous studies that the DQM
is capable of yielding highly accurate solutions for both
initial- and boundary-value problems with minimal
computational eort. Malik and Civan [12] have made
a comprehensive comparison for linear and nonlinear
convection-diusion-reaction problems and have shown
that the DQM stand out in numerical accuracy as well
as computational eciency over the FDM and FEM.
In the past two decades, DQM has been applied to many
elds including: biosciences, heat transfer, uid mechan-
ics, transport processes and structural mechanics, etc.,
and the realm of its applications is expected to grow fur-
ther in the future. Nonetheless, DQM itself is still in a
developing stage. The applications of DQM are most
limited to small scale problems. Some researchers have
extended DQM by combining it with some new tech-
niques to overcome this limitation. One can nd detailed
discussions and pertinent references in the review paper
[13]. More recent research works can be found in [14
19]. The application of DQM in geotechnical engineer-
ing is still very limited. Recently, Wang et al. [20]
introduced the DQM to the analysis of one-dimensional
consolidation of a double-layered ground.
In the present paper, the DQM is employed for the
analysis of one-dimensional nonlinear consolidation of
multi-layered soil, on the basis of the nonlinear theory
proposed by Davis and Raymond [3]. The mathematical
model is rst presented, which takes account of arbi-
trary initial eective stress distribution, partially drained
boundaries and arbitrary loading conditions. Then, the
DQM is briey introduced and used to derive the solu-
tion of the present problem. Finally, the present numer-
ical solution is compared to the analytical solution
developed by Xie et al. [9].
2. Mathematical modeling
The one-dimensional nonlinear consolidation of a
multi-layered soil with partially drained boundaries is
described by the schematic diagram shown in Fig. 1,
where h
i
is the thickness of the layer i (i = 1, 2, . . ., n),
H = h
1
+ h
2
+ . . . + h
n
is the total thickness, k
i
v0
is the
initial coecient of permeability in the vertical direction
of the ith layer, m
i
v0
is the initial coecient of compress-
ibility of the ith layer, and q(t) is the uniformly distrib-
uted load applied on the top surface of the soil.
Xie et al. [9] extended Davis and Raymands theory
[3] to double-layered soil and time-dependent loading
conditions. Herein, we can similarly write the governing
dierential equations for multi-layered soil as follows:
c
i
v
o
2
u
i
oz
2

1
r
0i
ou
i
oz

2
" #

ou
i
ot

dq
dt

i 1; 2; . . . ; n;
1
where, c
i
v
, u
i
and r
0
i
are the coecient of consolidation,
the excess pore water pressure and the eective vertical
stress in the ith layer respectively, and t and z are the
variables of time and space respectively.
The assumption of constant c
i
v
in each layer implies
that the decrease in permeability is proportional to the
decrease in compressibility [3]. Thus we have,
c
i
v
k
i
v0
=m
i
v0
c
w
in which c
w
is the unit weight of water,
and m
i
v0
0.434C
i
c
=1 e
i
0
r
0i
0
with C
i
c
denoting the com-
pression index of the ith layer and e
i
0
the initial void ra-
tio of the ith layer corresponding to the initial eective
stress r
0i
0
.
According to Terzaghis principle of eective stress,
r
0i
can be expressed as:
r
0i
q r
0i
0
u
i
. 2
Substituting Eq. (2) into Eq. (1), yields
ou
i
ot
c
i
v
o
2
u
i
oz
2

1
q r
0i
0
u
i
ou
i
oz

2
" #
Rt;
i 1; 2; . . . ; n; 3
where R(t) = dq/dt is the rate of loading.
. .
impedance layer
v0
n
n+1
v0
pervious
k
k v0 m
n
.
.
z
z
z
n
n-1
n
.
.
h
n+1
h
n
q(t)
impedance layer
v0
v0
i
1
k
0
v0
pervious
k
k
o
.
v0 m
i
.
.
v0 m
1
z
1
z
i-1
z
i
z
0
.
i
.
.
1
h
i
h
1
h
0
H
Fig. 1. Multi-layered soil with partially drained boundaries.
R.P. Chen et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 32 (2005) 358369 359
The boundary conditions and interfacial conditions
are
a
1
h
1
ou
1
oz
0; t b
1
u
1
0; t 0; 4
a
n
h
n
ou
n
oz
H; t b
n
u
n
H; t 0; 5
u
i
z
i
; t u
i1
z
i
; t; i 1; 2; . . . ; n 1; 6
k
i
v0
ou
i
oz
z
i
; t k
i1
v0
ou
i1
oz
z
i
; t; i 1; 2; . . . ; n 1;
7
where a
1
, b
1
, a
n
and b
n
are coecients which depend on
the specic boundary conditions. Tables 1 and 2 present
the particular values of these coecients for free drain-
ing, impervious and semi-impervious boundaries.
The initial excess pore water pressure is a continuous
function of depth
u
i
z; 0 u
0
z; i 1; 2; . . . ; n. 8
3. The dierential quadrature method
DQM is a numerical solution technique for initial-
and/or boundary-value problems proposed by Bellman
and Casti [10] and Bellman et al. [11]. In DQM, the
derivative of a function with respect to a variable can
be approximated by a weighted linear combination of
function values at the grid points in the domain of that
variable.
To show the mathematical detail of DQM, consider a
function y = y(x) on the domain 0 6 x 6 a. Let the
function values be known at a set of preselected sam-
pling points x
a
(a = 1, 2, . . . ,N). Then, an rth-order
derivative of the function y(x) at a point x = x
a
can be
approximated by the weighted linear sum of function
values as:
o
r
y
ox
r

xxa

X
N
b1
D
r
ab
yx
b
; a 1; 2; . . . ; N; 9
where D
r
ab
are the weighting coecients of the rth deriv-
ative, where r 6 N 1. As seen from Eq. (9), there are
two important factors that are associated with the accu-
racy of this method. These are the values of the weighting
coecients, and the positions of discrete variables. There
are many methods available for determining the weight-
ing coecients [11,13]. In this paper, Quan and Changs
method [21] is adopted because the weighting coecients
can be obtained directly, and most accurately, irrespec-
tive of the number and position of the sampling points.
The o-diagonal terms of the weighting coecient
matrix of the rst-order derivative are given by
D
1
ak

Q
N
m1;m6a
x
a
x
m

x
a
x
b

Q
N
m1;m6b
x
b
x
m

;
a; b 1; 2; . . . ; N a 6 b. 10
The o-diagonal terms of a weighting coecient ma-
trix of the second- and higher-order derivatives may be
obtained through the following recurrence relationships
D
r
ab
r D
r1
aa
D
1
ab

D
r1
ab
x
a
x
b
" #
;
a; b 1; 2; . . . ; N a 6 b; 11
where 2 6 r 6 N 1.
The diagonal terms of a weighting coecient matrix
are given by
D
r
aa

X
N
m1;m6a
D
r
am
; a 1; 2; . . . ; N; 12
where 1 6 r 6 N 1.
It should be noted that according to the principle of
DQM, the matrix does contain more nonzero coe-
cients than the FDM. But the advantage of DQM is that
it is more easy for implementation and computationally
more ecient than the conventional FDM and FEM in
solving ordinary and partial dierential equations
[12,22,23]. Bert et al. [13] also mentioned that DQM is
actually equivalent to a higher-order nite dierence
method. The recurrence relations in Eqs. (10)(12) are
very easy to be used for higher order derivatives and
are suitable for arbitrary discrete sampling points,
hence, reducing the computational eort signicantly.
As mentioned earlier, spacing of the sampling points
is also very important. In this study, equally spaced
points are selected for computation.
Using the above weighting coecients, we can dis-
cretize the basic equations by DQM. First the layers
Table 1
Drainage conditions of the upper boundary
Boundary drainage a
1
b
1
Free draining 0 1
Impervious 1 0
Impeded 1 k
0
v0
h
1
=k
1
v0
h
0a
a
k
0
v0
and h
0
are the coecients of permeability and thickness of the
impedence layer at the upper boundary, respectively.
Table 2
Drainage conditions of the lower boundary
Boundary drainage a
n
b
n
Free draining 0 1
Impervious 1 0
Impeded 1 k
n1
v0
h
n
=k
n
v0
h
n1a
a
k
n1
v0
and h
n + 1
are the coecients of permeability and thickness of
the impedence layer at the lower boundary, respectively.
360 R.P. Chen et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 32 (2005) 358369
are discretized by the rule of one dierential quadrature
element for each layer. The number of sampling points
in the ith element is N
i
(i = 1,2, . . ., n). For convenience,
the local coordinate n is introduced into each element.
The relation between the local coordinate and the global
coordinate adopted is expressed as
z
i
0.5 nz
i
1
0.5 nz
i
N
i ; 0.5 6 n 6 0.5;
13
where z
i
is the global coordinate of the ith element; z
i
1
and z
i
N
i
are the global coordinates of the rst and the
N
i
th points in the ith element, respectively. In terms of
Eq. (13), the dierentiation of z
i
can be expressed as
dz
i
z
i
N
i z
i
1
dn h
i
dn. 14
Then, the following relation can be obtained,
ou
i
oz

1
h
i
ou
i
on
;
o
2
u
i
oz
2

1
h
i

2
o
2
u
i
on
2
;
8
>
>
>
<
>
>
>
:
15
Eq. (15) can be discretized by DQM into the form as
ou
i
a
on
i

1
h
i
X
N
i
b1
D
i1
ab
u
i
b
;
o
2
u
i
a
on
i

2

1
h
i

2
X
N
i
b1
D
i2
ab
u
i
b
;
8
>
>
>
>
>
<
>
>
>
>
>
:
a 1; 2; . . . ; N
i
; 16
where u
i
a
is the pore water pressure of the ath point in
the ith element. D
i1
ab
and D
i2
ab
are the weighting coe-
cient matrices of the rst-order and second-order deriv-
atives, respectively.
Let T
c
1
v
t
h
1

2
, m
i

h
i
h
1
, a
i

c
i
v
c
1
v
, b
i

k
i
v0
k
1
v0
, R
i
a
T
h
1

2
c
1
v
R
i
a
t, u
i
a

u
i
a
q
. And using the rule of discretization
mentioned above (Eq. (16)), the Eqs. (3)(8), can be de-
duced to the following form
ou
i
a
oT

a
i
m
2
i
X
N
i
1
b2
D
i2
ab
u
i
b
D
i2
a1
u
i
1
D
i2
aN
i
u
i
N
i
1
1
r
0i
0a
qT
u
i
a
2
4

X
N
i
1
b2
D
i1
ab
u
i
b
D
i1
a1
u
i
1
D
i1
aN
i
u
i
N
i
!
2
3
5
R
i
a
T;
a2; 3; . . . ; N
i
1; 17
a
1
D
11
11
b
1
u
1
1
a
1
D
11
1N
1
u
1
N
1 a
1
X
N
1
1
b2
D
11
1b
u
1
b
; 18
a
n
D
n1
N
n
1
u
n
1
a
n
D
n1
N
n
N
n b
n
u
n
N
n a
n
X
N
n
1
b2
D
n1
N
n
b
u
n
b
; 19
u
i
N
i u
i1
1
; 20
b
i
m
i
D
i1
N
i
1
u
i
1
D
i1
N
i
N
i
u
i
N
i
b
i1
m
i1
D
i11
11
u
i1
1
D
i11
1N
i
u
i1
N
i1

b
i
m
i
X
N
i
1
b2
D
i1
N
i
b
u
i
b

b
i1
m
i1
X
N
i
1
b2
D
i11
1b
u
i1
b
; 21
u
i
j
t0
r0.5nz
i
1
0.5nz
i
N
i ; i 1; 2; . . . ; n1.
22
Let
u
i

u
i
2
u
i
3
.
.
.
u
i
a
.
.
.
u
i
N
i
1
2
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
4
3
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
5
; v
i

u
i
1
u
i
N
i
" #
; e
i

1
1
.
.
.
1
.
.
.
1
2
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
4
3
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
5
N
i
21
;
r
0i
0

r
0i
02
r
0i
03
.
.
.
r
0i
0a
.
.
.
r
0i
0N
i
1
2
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
4
3
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
5
; R
i

R
i
2
T
R
i
3
T
.
.
.
R
i
a
T
.
.
.
R
i
N
i
1
T
2
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
4
3
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
5
; u
u
1
u
2
.
.
.
u
i
.
.
.
u
n
2
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
4
3
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
5
;
v
v
1
v
2
.
.
.
v
i
.
.
.
v
n
2
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
4
3
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
5
; e
e
1
e
2
.
.
.
e
i
.
.
.
e
n
2
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
4
3
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
5
; r
0
0

r
01
0
r
02
0
.
.
.
r
0i
0
.
.
.
r
0n
0
2
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
4
3
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
5
; R
R
1
R
2
.
.
.
R
i
.
.
.
R
n
2
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
4
3
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
5
;
f u
1
e
r
0
0
qT
u
.
Based on Eqs. (18)(21), the relationship between
vector u and v can be written in a matrix form as
Mv Qu; 23
where the matrices M and Q are listed in Appendix. If
only one layered soil is considered, M and Q are simpli-
ed to
M
a
1
D
11
11
b
1
a
1
D
11
1N
1
a
n
D
11
N
1
1
a
n
D
11
N
1
N
1
b
n
" #
;
Q
a
1
D
11
12
a
1
D
11
1N
1
1
a
n
D
11
N
1
2
a
n
D
11
N
1
N
1
1
" #
.
R.P. Chen et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 32 (2005) 358369 361
If a double-layered soil is considered, M and Q take the
following forms
Substituting Eq. (23) into Eq. (17), one obtains
du
dT
CH Au f u Bu
2
h i
R; 24
where CH = diag{CH
1
CH
2
CH
i
CH
n
}, CH
i

ai
m
2
i
I
N
i
2
; I
N
i
2
is (N
i
2)th-order identity matrix, (i =
1, 2, . . . ,n 1); (Bu)
2
represents a column vector whose
element is the square of the corresponding element in
Bu and f(u) (Bu)
2
represents the product of correspond-
ing elements in the column vector f(u) and (Bu)
2
, and
A diag A
1
1
A
2
1
A
i
1
A
n
1

diag A
1
2
A
2
2
A
i
2
A
n
2

M
1
Q;
B diag B
1
1
B
2
1
B
i
1
B
n
1

diag B
1
2
B
2
2
B
i
2
B
n
2

M
1
Q;
A
i
1

D
i2
22
. . . D
i2
2N
i
1
.
.
.

.
.
.
D
i2
N
i
12
D
i2
N
i
1N
i
1
2
6
6
6
4
3
7
7
7
5
;
A
i
2

D
i2
21
D
i2
2N
i
.
.
.
;
.
.
.
D
i2
N
i
11
D
i2
N
i
1N
i
2
6
6
6
4
3
7
7
7
5
;
B
i
1

D
i1
22
. . . D
i1
2N
i
.
.
.

.
.
.
D
i1
N
i
12
D
i1
N
i
1N
i
1
2
6
6
6
4
3
7
7
7
5
;
B
i
2

D
i1
21
D
i1
2N
i
.
.
.
;
.
.
.
D
i1
N
i
11
D
i1
N
i
1N
i
2
6
6
6
4
3
7
7
7
5
;
It should be noted that Eq. (24) is the DQ formula-
tion for one-dimensional nonlinear consolidation in
multi-layered soil associated with arbitrary initial eec-
tive stress distribution, partially drained boundaries
and arbitrary loading condition. The vector u, i.e., the
pore water pressure at the sampling points located in
each internal element, can be obtained by the use of
the fourth-order RungeKutta method. Then, based
on Eq. (23), one can obtain v, the pore water pressure
at the boundary and interface sampling points in each
element.
The eective stress at every sampling point can be ex-
pressed as:
r
0i
a
q u
i
a
; a 1; 2; . . . ; N
i
; i 1; 2; . . . ; n. 25
The average degree of consolidation can be expressed
as:
U
p

P
n
i1
R
z
i
z
i1
r
0i
r
0i
0
dz
P
n
i1
R
z
i
z
i1
r
0i
f
r
0i
0
dz
; 26
where U
p
is the average degree of consolidation
dened in terms of eective stress. The integral opera-
tion in Eq. (26) can be achieved via numerical meth-
od. In the present paper, U
p
will be obtained in the
following examples by the Simpson method.
4. Results and discussion
In the previous section, based on the theory pro-
posed by Davis and Raymond [3], the DQ solution
for one-dimensional nonlinear consolidation of multi-
layered soil is derived. In order to investigate the con-
vergency and accuracy of this model, the analytical
solution derived by Xie et al. [9] for one-dimensional
nonlinear consolidation of double-layered soil is se-
lected for comparison. Two simple examples will be
considered and comparison is made with the analytical
and FDM models. The rst is a one-layered soil, for
which Eq. (24) is solved by the Adaptive RungeKut-
taFehlberg method with the error tolerance d = 10
3
.
The second is a double-layered soil, for which the time
M
a
1
D
11
11
b
1
a
1
D
11
1N
1
0 0
0 1 1 0
b
1
m
1
D
11
N
1
1
b
1
m
1
D
11
N
1
N
1

b
2
m
2
D
21
11

b
2
m
2
D
21
1N
2
0 0 a
n
D
21
N
2
1
a
n
D
21
N
2
N
2
b
n
2
6
6
6
6
4
3
7
7
7
7
5
;
Q
a
1
D
11
12
a
1
D
11
1N
1
1
0 0
0 0 0 0

b
1
m
1
D
11
N
1
2

b
1
m
1
D
11
N
1
N
1
1
b
2
m
2
D
21
12

b
2
m
2
D
21
1N
2
1
0 0 a
n
D
21
N
2
2
a
n
D
21
N
2
N
2
1
2
6
6
6
6
4
3
7
7
7
7
5
.
362 R.P. Chen et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 32 (2005) 358369
integration for FDM and DQM models is performed
by the fourth-order RungeKutta method with the
time step dT = 0.01. Constant loading and single-
drainage boundary conditions are assumed in both
examples. The relevant soil properties are shown in
Table 3.
At a given (sampling) point, the relative error of the
DQ solution (as well as the FDM) is dened as
e
uj
exact
uj
DQM
uj
exact
100; 27
where, uj
exact
is the exact value obtained from the analyt-
ical solution [9], and uj
DQM
is the value obtained from
the DQM model.
4.1. Convergence of DQM model
The pore pressure at the middle point obtained
from DQM for dierent numbers of equally spaced
sampling points (N = 5, 7, 9) is compared with the
analytical solution in Fig. 2. The variations of the er-
ror in u/q with time factor T for dierent N are shown
in Fig. 3. It can be seen that the DQ solution with
equally spaced sampling points shows a monotonic
convergence, with its accuracy increasing with the
number of points. The DQ solution is very close to
the analytical solution when N = 7. When N = 9, it
is almost identical to the analytical solution. Thus,
for the purpose of engineering practice, the DQ solu-
tion for one-layered soil can yield results of adequate
accuracy when adopting 79 equally spaced sampling
points.
Table 3
Parameters of the soil for the convergence and accuracy analysis
Example Fig. no. Thickness of
soil ratio m
2
= h
2
/h
1
Coecient of consolidation
ratio a
2
c
2
v
=c
1
v
Coecient of permeability
ratio b
2
k
2
v0
=k
1
v0
N
r
a
One-layered soil 2, 3 One layer 2.5
Double-layered soil 5 1 1 1 2.5
6, 8 1 1.44 1.2 2.5
7, 9 1.2 1.44 1.2 2.5
a
N
r
is the ratio of the nal eective pressure to the initial eective stress with the assumption that the initial eective stress is uniform in the
thickness direction, viz. N
r

r
0
f
r
0
0

qr
0
0
r
0
0
.
T
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
-12
-10
-8
-6
-4
-2
0
P
e
r
c
e
n
t

e
r
r
o
r

i
n

u

/
q
,

5 sampling points
7 sampling points
9 sampling points
Fig. 3. Error analysis for one layer problem.
soil element 1
soil element 2
2
impervious
k c
2
v0
2
v
z
2
z
7
4
5
6
3
kv0
1
v c
1
pervious
q(t)
z
1
o
z
0
3
1 7
6
4
5
1
2
h
2
H
h
1
Fig. 4. Double layered soil.
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
1.2
u/q
analytical solution [9]
DQM solution 5 sampling points
DQM solution 7 sampling points
DQM solution 9 sampling points
T
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
Fig. 2. Convergence and accuracy analysis for one layer problem.
R.P. Chen et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 32 (2005) 358369 363
4.2. Comparisons with previous models
Consider a double-layered soil, as shown in Fig. 4.
The two layers are discretized into two dierential
quadrature elements with equally spaced 7 sampling
points. The variations of the average consolidation de-
gree U
p
with the time factor T
v
c
1
v
t=H
2
obtained by
the analytical and DQ solutions are presented in
Fig. 5. It can be seen that the DQM results agree well
with the exact ones. As compared with the analytical
solution, DQM can avoid the cumbersome task of
solving the Eigen-equation and yield results with ade-
quate accuracy.
The advantage of DQM over FDM can be shown
for the problem as shown in Fig. 4. The FD solution
uses the same number of grid points as DQM and
adopts the central FD scheme. The analytical, DQM
and FDM results of the inner points of the 1st layer
and the 2nd layer are obtained for m
2
= 1.0 and
m
2
= 1.2. The comparisons in Figs. 6 and 7 show that
for both cases the DQM results are more accurate than
the FDM. The variations of the percent error with T are
obtained, and comparisons between DQM and FDM are
shown in Figs. 8 and 9 for the third point in the 1st layer.
It is obvious that the DQM yields results of higher accu-
racy and stability for the two cases under consideration.
0.01 0.1 1 10
100
80
60
40
20
0
U
p
(%)
T
v
Analytical vsolution [9]
DQM solution
Fig. 5. Comparison with analytical solution for double layered soil.
0 1 2 4 3 5
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
the 3
th
point
in the 1
st
layer
u

/

q
T
the 4
th
point
in the 2
nd
layer
EXACT
DQM
FDM
Fig. 6. Comparison for m
2
= 1.0.
the 3
th
point
in the 1
st
layer
EXACT
DQM
FDM
u

/

q
T
the 4
th
point
in the 2
nd
layer
0 1 2 4 3 5
0.0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1.0
Fig. 7. Comparison for m
2
= 1.2.
p
e
r
c
e
n
t

e
r
r
o
r

i
n

u
/
q
,

(
%
)
0 2 4 1 3 5
-5
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
DQM solution
FDM solution
T
Fig. 8. Error analysis for m
2
= 1.0.
DQM solution
FDM solution
0 2 4 1 3 5
-5
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
T
p
e
r
c
e
n
t

e
r
r
o
r

i
n

u
/
q
,

(
%
)
Fig. 9. Error analysis comparison for m
2
= 1.2.
364 R.P. Chen et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 32 (2005) 358369
The error of the FD solution increases dramatically with
time while the DQ solution is very stable.
4.3. Multi-layered soil
4.3.1. Linear consolidation
To further illustrate the application of DQM in the
analysis of consolidation of multi-layered soil, a four-
layered soil is investigated. The related parameters are
listed in Table 4. Schiman and Stein [24] presented
the analytical results to this four-layered soil with free
draining at the top and bottom boundaries, in which
the loading q(t) does not vary with time and has a unit
magnitude. Xie and Pan [25] extended the analytical
solution to a linear loading. But both works [24,25] con-
sider the linear consolidation only. For linear consolida-
tion Eq. (24) becomes
du
dT
CH Au; 28
with the solution
uT e
CHA
u0 qU; 29
where U is the unit vector with the same order as the
matrix A.
In the calculation, the soil is separated into four dif-
ferential quadrature elements, and according to the
depth of each layer, the numbers of equally spaced sam-
pling points of the four layers are taken as
N = 7,13,19,13, respectively. The results of FDM are
obtained using the same sampling points as DQM.
The comparisons are shown in Figs. 10 and 11, where
constant load and double drainage boundaries are
considered.
Figs. 10 and 11 present the average consolidation de-
gree U
p
vs. time factor T and the pore-water pressure
isochrones, respectively. The DQMresults agree well with
the analytical solutions [25]. Onthe other hand, we can see
the obvious dierence between the FD solution and the
exact solution.
4.3.2. Nonlinear consolidation
It should be mentioned that due to the uniform
matrix structure of the DQ formulation in this paper,
it is very ecient for implementation for multi-layered
soil problems. Furthermore it can be easily extended
to nonlinear consolidation, involving arbitrary initial
eective stress distribution, partially drained bound-
aries and arbitrary loading conditions. Now we give
two more complicated examples where the initial eec-
tive stresses are linearly distributed with the saturated
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0.0
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
T
v
=0.05
T
v
=0.03
u/q
z/H
T
v
=0.01
Analytical solution [25]
DQM solution
FDM solution
Fig. 11. The pore-water pressure isochrones.
Table 4
Parameters of four-layered soil
Layer no.i h
i
(m) m
i
(kPa
1
) c
i
v
(m
2
/s) a
i
c
i
v
=c
1
v
k
i
v0
(m/s) b
i
k
i
v0
=k
1
v0
Parameters for Figs. 10,11 and 13,14
1 3.05 1 4.42 10
8
1 2.78 10
11
1
2 6.10 2 2.06 10
7
4.667 8.25 10
11
2.966
3 9.14 3 5.85 10
8
1.333 1.17 10
11
0.422
4 6.10 2 7.35 10
8
1.669 2.94 10
11
1.058
Parameters for Figs. 1517
3 9.14 3 5.85 10
7
13.33 1.17 10
11
0.422
3 9.14 3 5.85 10
9
0.1333 1.17 10
11
0.422
Note: The parameters are quoted from Table 3 in [24]. The gures have been converted to international system of units.
0.00 0.05 0.10 0.15 0.20 0.25
100
80
60
40
20
0
U
p
(%)
T
Analytical solution [25]
DQM solution
FDM solution
Fig. 10. The average consolidation degree U
p
.
R.P. Chen et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 32 (2005) 358369 365
unit weight c = 18 kN/m
3
. Again, the Adaptive
RungeKuttaFehlberg method with the error toler-
ance d = 10
3
is chosen for the time integration of
Eq. (24).
The rst example considers the above-mentioned
four layered soil foundation, with a linear loading as
shown in Fig. 12 (q
u
= 200 kPa). The curves of the
total average degree of consolidation U
p
vs. time fac-
tor T
v
c
1
v
t=H
2
corresponding to dierent drainage
conditions are shown in Fig. 13. Fig. 14 gives the var-
0
u
q
t
t
c
( ) q t
Fig. 12. Linear loading.
10
-3
10
-2
10
-1
10
0
10
1
100
80
60
40
20
0
T
v
T
vc
=c
v
1
t
c
/H
2
= 0 0.1 2 5 8
U
p
(%)
Fig. 14. Variation of U
p
vs. T
v
.
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0
100
80
60
40
20
0
T
v
a
3
=13.33
a
3
=0.1333
U
p
(%)
Fig. 15. Inuence of a
3
on the average consolidation degree U
p
.
0
5
25
20
15
10
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2
T=0.02,
U
p
=28.63%
T=0.03,
U
p
=48.59%
T=0.05,
U
p
=74.16%
Tv
z

(
m
)
Fig. 16. The pore-water pressure isochrones (a
3
= 13.33).
z

(
m
)
25
20
15
10
5
0
T=0.02,
U
p
=22.39%
T=0.03,
U
p
=29.70%
T=0.05,
U
p
=39.24%
T=0.10,
U
p
=50.69%
T=0.29,
U
p
=75.84%
0.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.0 1.2
Tv
Fig. 17. The pore-water pressure isochrones (a
3
= 0.1333).
100
80
60
40
20
0
upper boundary lower boundary
a
1
=1, b
1
=0.5 Impervious
a
1
=1, b
1
=2 Impervious
Free draining Impervious
Free draining a
n
=1, b
n
=0.5
Free draining Free draining
T
vc
= c
v
1
t
c
/H
2
= 0.01
10
-3
10
-2
10
-1
10
0
10
1
T
v
U
p
(%)
Fig. 13. Inuence of drainage condition on the average consolidation
degree U
p
.
366 R.P. Chen et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 32 (2005) 358369
iation of U
p
vs. T
v
for the dierent T
vc
for the single
drainage boundary condition.
The second example considers a similar four
layered foundation problem. All parameters are the
same as those in the rst example, except for the
coecient of consolidation c
v
of the 3rd layer, which
is now assigned to the values in Table 3. The results
of DQM are presented in Figs. 1517 where constant
loading (i.e., T
vc
= 0, and q
u
= 200 kPa) and double
drainage boundary conditions are assumed. It can be
seen that the variation of soil parameters has a
signicant inuence on the layered soil consolidation.
5. Conclusions
The DQ solution of the one-dimensional nonlinear
consolidation of multi-layered soil with arbitrary
initial eective stress distribution, partially drained
boundaries and arbitrary loading conditions is
presented in this paper. Based on the numerical
examples presented, the following conclusions can be
drawn:
1. The present DQ formulations for one-dimensional
nonlinear consolidation yield results of monotonic
convergence and the accuracy increases with the
number of sampling points. For engineering
practice, it can yield results of adequate accuracy
when 79 equally spaced sampling points in one-layer
soil are adopted.
2. The advantage of the DQ solution is, compared with
the analytical solution, that it can avoid the cumber-
some task to solve the Eigen-equation. Compared
with the FDM, DQM also delivers more accurate
and stable solutions for one-dimensional nonlinear
consolidation of multi-layered soil.
3. For the four-layered soil, it can be seen that the DQM
yields results of good numerical accuracy. Due to the
uniform matrix structure of the DQ formulations it is
easy to compile computational program when consid-
ering the complicated conditions of consolidation,
which is convenient for the purpose of engineering
practice.
Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank National Natural Sci-
ence Foundation of China for nancial support (re-
search grant: 50308026). The discusses with
Dr. W.Q. Chen and D.R.K. Murthy are appreciated.
The authors are also obliged to the reviewers of this
paper for providing their suggestions which helped
improving the paper. A
p
p
e
n
d
i
x
E
x
p
r
e
s
s
i
o
n
s
f
o
r
m
a
t
r
i
c
e
s
M
a
n
d
Q
M

a
1
D
1

1
1

b
1
a
1
D
1

1
N
1
0
0

0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0
0
1

1
0

0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0
b
1
m
1
D
1

N
1
1
b
1
m
1
D
1

N
1
N
1

b
2
m
2
D
2

1
1

b
2
m
2
D
2

1
N
2

0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0
.. .
.. .
.. .
.. .
.. .
.. .
.. .
.. .
.. .
.. .
.. .
.. .
.. .
.. .
0
0
0
0

0
1

1
0

0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0

b
i
m
i
D
i

N
i
1
b
i
m
i
D
i

N
i
N
i

b
i

1
m
i

1
D
i

1
1

b
i

1
m
i

1
D
i

1
N
i

0
0
0
0
.. .
.. .
.. .
.. .
.. .
.. .
.. .
.. .
.. .
.. .
.. .
.. .
.. .
.. .
0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0

0
1

1
0
0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0

b
n

1
m
n

1
D
n

N
n

1
1
b
n

1
m
n

1
D
n

N
n

1
N
n

b
n
m
n
D
n

1
1

b
n
m
n
D
n

1
N
n
0
0
0
0

0
0
0
0

0
0
a
n
D
n

N
n
1
a
n
D
n

N
n
N
n

b
n
2666666666666666666666664
3777777777777777777777775
R.P. Chen et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 32 (2005) 358369 367
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o
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368 R.P. Chen et al. / Computers and Geotechnics 32 (2005) 358369
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