ABSTRACT
Prefabricated Vertical Drains (PVDs) are frequently used in civil engineering projects where there is a need to speed up the consolidation of low permeability soils subjected to structural loads. However, when it comes to finite element modelling, capturing the geometry of individual PVDs is often a tedious exercise, particularly when incorporating their surrounding ‘smear zones’ of reduced horizontal permeability (kh ) that result from installation. In this paper, a new method is introduced which involves the attachment of a smear radius to 1D drainage elements. This allows for automatic reduction of k h at mesh integration points that fall within the smear zone, as well as the consideration of non-uniform hydraulic properties. The results of analyses carried out for a unit cell with a single PVD and smear zone show that the new method achieves the same accuracy as the case where the smear zone is modelled as a separate meshed region.
