ABSTRACT
All cases consist of a 30 m thick soft clay layer below a 10 m thick sand layer as shown in Figure 1. A surface load of 50 kPa (light structure) or 90 kPa (heavy structure) is distributed over an area that is large compared to the thickness of the soft clay layer (1D condition), except for one case. Settlements below the clay layer are neglected. The ground water table (GWT) is at the top of the sand layer. For the bottom boundary two extreme assumptions are considered, either a perfectly drained or an impervious surface. The following cases were analysed (however, only some of the results are presented here):
1. Normally consolidated (NC) behaviour where the pre-consolidation pressure is assumed to be equal to the in-situ effective vertical stress.
