ABSTRACT
Consolidation of a fully saturated soil is the gradual reduction of its volume due to drainage of some of the pore water. The movement of water through and out of a soil mass requires time; the time rate of consolidation is controlled principally, though not entirely, by the permeability of soil. In current soil mechanics textbooks, the excess pore-water pressure in consolidation process is defined in at least two ways. First, the excess pore-water pressure is defined as the excess over the hydrostatic pressure. The second definition of excess pore-water pressure states that it is the pore pressure in excess of a steady-state flow condition. These two definitions of excess pore pressure coincide when consolidation theory is used in cases where the water after consolidation is stationary. A central part in solving a physical problem is the description of the constitutive relations between physical quantities such as stress, stress-rate, strain, and strain-rate.
