Consolidation of clays subjected to three‐dimensional embankment loadings

A Fourier transform technique is presented which may be used to analyse three-dimensional consolidation problems for soils which are loaded by embankment shaped loadings that are rectangular in plan (or of arbitrary shape which can be divided into rectangles in plan). The introduction of a Fourier transform effectively reduces the three-dimensional problem to one involving only two spatial dimensions and this reduces computer storage and saves computing and data preparation time. The material properties of the soil may vary arbitrarily in the plane which is perpendicular to the axis associated with the variable eliminated during the Fourier transform. Solutions obtained using the method are compared with existing solutions in order to verify the theory and assess accuracy, and illustrative examples are given for problems involving the consolidation of soils under embankment loadings.