ABSTRACT
The consolidation of unsaturated soils is commonly encountered in real practice. In contrast to saturated soils, the additional air phase in the void of the soil stratum complicates the consolidation process of unsaturated soils. In this study, a closed-form solution was established for the consolidation of unsaturated soils considering a semi-permeable boundary. A series of cases were conducted to show the characteristics associated with the consolidation of unsaturated soils commonly happened in in-situ projects. Compared with the existing analytical solutions, the derivation process is much simpler without using complicated mathematical methodologies. The proposed solution is verified to be accurate by comparing it with an analytical solution in the literature. This study reveals that, with a semi-permeable boundary, there exist some impeded effects on the excess pore water and air pressures at corresponding boundaries. The excess pore water and air pressures closed to the semi-permeable boundary exhibit an impeded feature.
