Consolidation Analysis of Soft Soil with Continuous Drainage Boundary under Cyclic Loads

The foundation of onshore and offshore structures can be subjected to various types of cyclic loads. It is very significant to consider the effects of the drainage boundary condition and the different cyclic loading characteristics for the design of soft soil foundations. This paper proposes analytical solutions for one-dimensional (1D) consolidation of saturated soil with a continuous drainage boundary under harmonic, trapezoidal, rectangular, and triangular cyclic loads by applying mathematical transformations, including the eigenfunction expansion method and the finite Fourier sine transformation. The verification of the proposed solutions is conducted by comparing them with the existing solutions in the literature and the numerical solutions. A parametric study is performed to examine the influences of different parameters on the 1D consolidation of soft soil with a continuous drainage boundary subjected to cyclic loads. The results show that the interface parameters and the cyclic load parameters have considerable effects on the 1D consolidation behavior of soil. The present solutions can be effectively applied for prediction and estimation of the time-dependent response of soft soil subjected to various cyclic loads.