Explain how vertical drains can reduce consolidation timeSol

Explain how vertical drains can reduce consolidation time

Solution

Consolidation is the process by which the volume of the soil decreases due to expulsion of pore water under long term static loads.

In case of soft clays due to very less permeability consolidation takes very long time. To accelerate consolidation process vertical drains are installed. Vertical drains have very high permeability and it causes to drain the pore water resulting in reducing the consolidation time.

To shorten the consolidation vertical drains are incerted into the soft clay subsoil. Thus, the pore water squeezed out during consolidation of the clay due to the hydraulic gradient created by the static loading, can flow faster in the horizontal directions towards the vertical drains.