Embankment Consolidation 36-1

Embankment Consolidation

In this tutorial, RS2 is used for a coupled analysis of a road embankment

subject to loading from typical daily traffic.

Model

Start the RS2 9.0 Model program.

All tutorial files installed with RS2 9.0 can be accessed by selecting File >
Recent Folders > Tutorials Folder from the RS2 main menu. The finished
product of this tutorial can be found in the Tutorial 36 Embankment
Consolidation sub-folder in the Tutorials folder.

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Project Settings
Open the Project Settings dialog from the Analysis menu and select
the Groundwater tab. Define Method as Transient FEA and initial pore
pressures as Steady State FEA.

Select the General tab. Select Solid-Fluid Interaction: Coupled

(Biot). Make sure the Units option is set to Metric, stress as kPa, the
time units to Days and the permeability units to meters/second.

Select the Stages tab and change the number of stages to 8. Enter the
following staging information:

Name Time (days) Drained?

Initial Fully Drained
Stage 2 1 Drained
Stage 3 10 Drained
Stage 4 20 Drained
Stage 5 60 Drained
Stage 6 61 Drained
Stage 7 62 Drained
Stage 8 65 Drained

Close the dialog by clicking OK.

Boundaries
The problem consists of three soil layers and an embankment fill,
therefore an external boundary and material boundaries need to be
created.

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Start by creating a rectangular external boundary. Select the Add

External option in the Boundaries menu and enter the following
coordinates:

0,0

100 , 0

100 , -40

0 , -40

c (to close the boundary)

Press F2 to Zoom All.

Now we need to delineate the different material layers within the model.
For simplicity, we will import material boundaries from a DXF file; from
the File menu, select Import then Import DXF. Navigate to the
Tutorial 36 folder in the Tutorials folder, and open the file Tutorial 36
Embankment Consolidation.dxf. Ensure that Boundary Type =
Material and the Run Geometry Cleanup after import checkbox is
selected. Select OK.

The Geometry Cleanup dialog should appear. Ensure the following is

selected then select OK.

Your model should look like the one below:

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Materials
Now select the Materials and Staging workflow tab to assign materials
and properties to our model. Since we have four materials to define, let’s
use the Import Properties option to read in properties from a file.

Select: File > Import > Import Properties

Navigate to the Tutorial 36 folder. For example:

C:\Users\Public\Documents\Rocscience\Phase2 9.0
Examples\tutorials\Tutorial 36 Embankment Consolidation

Open the file Tutorial 36 Embankment Consolidation.fez. You will see the
Import Properties dialog. Select all of the materials as shown, and select
OK. The material properties are now imported.

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Now select Define Materials from the toolbar or the Properties menu.
Examine the properties of the four imported materials. Click on each
material name and select the Strength and Stiffness tabs, and note the
different properties of each material. Notice that the Embankment Fill
material has an Initial Element Loading = Body Force Only, since it
represents a fill material placed on top of the existing sand layers.

When you are finished examining the material properties, select Cancel
in the Define Material Properties dialog.

Hydraulic
When we imported the material properties, the material hydraulic
properties were also imported. Let’s have a look. From the Properties
menu select Define Hydraulic.

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Click on each material name. Notice that the permeability model is

Constant for each material, and note the differing permeability values
for each material. Select Cancel when you are finished examining the
hydraulic properties.

Now let’s assign the materials to the model. From the toolbar or the
Properties menu select Assign Properties. Assign the materials as
shown.

Excavate

Silty Sand I

Silty Sand II

Dense Silty Sand

Notice that the blank region above the "Silty Sand I" is assigned as
excavated material for now. This is because we will be constructing the
lifts of the embankment in stages. As long as the layers correspond to the
correct material properties, the color of the materials is irrelevant.

Embankment Fill

Still within the Assign Properties dialog, we will fill in our embankment
lifts in stages.

1. Select the "Embankment Fill" material at the top of the Assign

Properties dialog.

2. Select Stage 2 and apply the material to the bottom lift. The model in
Stage 2 should appear as shown.

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3. Select Stage 3 and apply the material to the second lift from the
bottom.

4. Move on to the next stage and continue until all lifts have been
assigned the “Embankment Fill” material.

Stage 4:

Stage 5:

5. Select the X button at the upper right to close the Assign dialog.

Now select the Stage tabs in order, 1 to 5, to verify the embankment layer
assignment.

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Mesh
Next we move to the Mesh tab. Here we may specify the mesh type and
discretization density for our model. For this tutorial, we will use a 6-
noded finite element mesh type.

From the Mesh menu select Mesh Setup.

We want to use a uniform, 6-noded element mesh. Change the Mesh type
to Uniform, make sure the Element type = 6 Noded Triangles and the
Approximate Number of Elements = 10000 as shown:

Click the Discretize button and then the Mesh button. Click OK to close
the dialog. The mesh will look like this:

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Groundwater
Since there are no liners or additional reinforcement in our model, we
will skip the Support tab and move on to the Groundwater tab. In this
tutorial, we will model a water table at about the depth of the lowest
point on the embankment.

From the Groundwater menu select Set Boundary Conditions.

The Set Boundary Conditions dialog appears. Follow the steps below
to input the transient condition:

1. Ensure you are on Stage 1 tab. From the BC Type drop down menu,
select Total Head (H).

2. Enter a Total Head Value (m) of -12 meters.

3. You are now in selection mode. We want to apply the Total Head
boundary condition to the side faces of the external boundary.

When your selection looks similar to the model above, click “Apply” from
the Add Boundary Conditions dialog. Select Close.

Your model should show the following groundwater conditions.

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Loading
We wish to apply a surcharge to the soil surface on top of the
embankment to represent traffic loading. Click on the tab for Stage 5.
From the Loading menu, select Distributed Loads and then select
Add Uniform Load. Set the magnitude to 10 kN/m2 as shown and click
the checkbox for Stage Load.

Click on the button for Stage Factors. Set the Stage Factors to 0 except
for Stages 5, 6, 7, and 8 as shown.

Click OK to close the Stage Factors dialog. Click OK to close the Add
Distributed Load dialog. You will now be prompted to select a boundary
on which to apply the load. Select the two roadway sections of the top of
the embankment and hit enter. Your final model for Stage 5 should now
look like this:

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Field Stress
Because the top of the model represents the true ground surface, we want
to use a gravity field stress. Go to the Loading menu and select Field
Stress.

For Field Stress Type select Gravity and click the checkbox for Use
actual ground surface and Use effective stress ratio. Also change
the Effective Stress Ratio both vertical in and out-of-plane to 0.5.

Click OK to close the dialog.

Restraints
By default, all segments of the external boundary are fixed. Since the top
of this model represents the actual ground surface, we need to free the
top surface. Go to the Displacements menu and select Free. Click on
the three sections that make up the top external boundary and hit Enter.
You will see that the fixed boundary conditions have disappeared from
the top external boundaries.

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The left and right edges of the embankment should be fixed only in the x-
direction to allow vertical movement. Select Restrain X from the
Displacements menu and select the sections of the left and right
boundaries. These boundaries will now be showing rollers instead of pins.

Finally, we need to re-establish the fixed boundary condition on the

bottom corners. Select Restrain X,Y from the Displacements menu,
click on the bottom boundary and hit Enter. Your model should now look
like this:

You have completed the definition of the model. Save the model using the
Save option in the File menu.

Compute

Run the model using the Compute option in the Analysis menu. The
analysis should take a few minutes to run.

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Interpret

Once the model has finished computing (Compute dialog closes), select
the Interpret option in the Analysis menu to view the results.

Pressure Head
The Interpret program starts and reads the results of the analysis. From
the drop down menu select Seepage then Pressure Head.

Notice the legend at the right side of the view. The legend is
automatically adjusted to the values at each stage. From the View menu,
select Contour Options. To have a uniform contour range for all stages,
select Auto-Range (all stages).

Now let’s flip through the stages and see what happens to the water table
as the embankment is constructed and traffic loads are added. Notice the
water table (zero pressure head) is highlighted by a pink line
superimposed on the contours.

Initial Stage (0 d):

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Stage 2 (1 d):

Stage 5 (60 d):

The embankment installation is complete and traffic load is applied.

Stage 8 (65 d):

Very little change in pressure head occurs between the last few stages.

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Excess Pore Water Pressure

We want to only view the excess pore pressure due to the construction of
the embankment. Therefore, we should set the in-situ conditions as the
reference stage. Right-click any stage tab at the bottom of your screen
and select Stage Settings as shown.

The following Stage Settings dialog should appear.

Drag the Reference Stage indicator to the right until Not used changes
to Initial as shown. The current Visible Stage is not important in this
process. We have set the initial stage as our reference stage. The solid
results of all other stages are calculated with respect to the solid results
of the reference stage.

New Results = Current Stage Results – Reference Stage Results

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Now from the drop down menu, select Seepage then Excess Pore
Pressure.

Notice how the excess pore water pressure builds up under the
embankment and then dissipates over time.

Stage 2 (1 d):

Stage 4 (20 d):

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Stage 5 (60 d):

The Maximum excess pore pressure in the bottom soil layers under the
embankment, decreases from near 40 kPa to less than 10 kPa after stage
5. Not much change occurs between the last few stages after the
installation of the embankment is complete and the traffic load is added.

If you add a vertical material query line from the bottom of the
embankment to the bottom of the external boundary, and graph the
query, you can see the profile of excess pore pressure underneath the
embankment decreasing with time.

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Settlement
To see the settlement of the embankment, with the same stage settings,
from the drop down menu, select Solid Displacement; then select
Vertical Displacement. In the Contour Options dialog, change the
Auto-Format = Cold to Hot.

At the point that the first lift is constructed, Stage 2, notice the
settlement below the lift.

Select through the stages to see the change in settlement as the

embankment is constructed and traffic loads are added.

Additionally, to see the deformed shape, from the view menu, select
Display options. In the Display Options dialog, in the Stress tab under
Deformations check Deformed Contours.

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Click Done to finish. The deformed contour for Stage 5 (60 d) is shown
below:

Turn off the deformed contour option.

Using the same material query, let’s plot the settlement below the
embankment. Right click on the query line, select Graph Data, and graph
the settlement results for all stages.

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The vertical settlement underneath the embankment increases until

stage 5 (addition of traffic loads) and then stays constant for the
remaining stages.

This concludes the Embankment Consolidation Tutorial.

RS2 v. 9.0 Tutorial Manual