ABSTRACT
Soil primarily consists of a solid and water. When the soil is under compression, the volumetric stiffness of water is much higher than that of the solid; therefore, the water absorbs the pressure immediately and flows away from the region of high pressure. Thus, the solid gradually takes over the loading and shrinks in volume. That is the process of soil consolidation. Porous media are regarded as two-phase materials governed by an extended Biot’s consolidation theory. Primary consolidation is the settlement process in which a vertical stress changes due to an applied load that causes water to be squeezed out of the soil. The process is complete when all the water in the soil is squeezed out. The consolidation was simulated in ANSYS190 using Coupled Pore–Pressure–Thermal elements. The whole area is composed of three rock zones and two fault zones.
