ABSTRACT
This paper presents a discussion about vertical (cv) and horizontal (ch) coefficients of consolidation of Guaratiba’s very soft clay, located at the lowlands of the West Zone of Rio de Janeiro city, Brazil. Due to the thickness of the deposit, high compressibility of the clay, and low undrained strength, the settlement stabilization, even with vertical drains, are known to take of about 30 months to occur at these lowlands. Thus it is essential to know cv, ch and ch/cv relationship in order to predict when settlement stabilization will occur. The variability of cv and ch values is very high, probably due to the wide range of organic matter, sand lenses and the sand content throughout the soft soil deposit. The aim of the paper is to compare these values of coefficients of consolidation obtained from the dissipation tests and from the consolidation tests and to discuss an approach to determine them for design considering their variability.
