Chemo-Mechanical Consolidation of Clays: Analytical Solutions for a Linearized One-Dimensional Problem

Consolidation (and swelling) of clayey soils caused by change in chemistry of pore fluid is addressed. Such phenomena are caused by changes in the concentration of various species in the solution and result primarily from a stress-independent deformation of individual clusters, and from a mechanical weakening or strengthening of the clay solid matrix in the presence of stress. Second, transport of chemicals that involves concentration gradients induces additional driving forces of osmotic consolidation due to semipermeable membrane nature of clay. In this paper an extension of Terzaghi's model of the mechanical consolidation to incorporate chemical loading of soil is proposed. A linearized model is used to solve analytically two one-dimensional problems of consolidation of a homogeneous layer simulating a landfill liner with drained or undrained boundaries. The numerical results show a strong dependence of distribution of pore pressure on the chemical load and chemically induced settlements of soil to be comparable to the mechanical ones.