One-dimensional nonlinear consolidation of multi-layered soil by differential quadrature method

In this paper the differential quadrature method (DQM) is introduced into the analysis of one-dimensional nonlinear consolidation of multi-layered soil with partially drained boundaries and arbitrary loading condition. The effect of initial effective stress distribution is taken into account. The convergence and accuracy study shows that the DQM is able to give highly accurate and stable calculations. Due to the uniform matrix structure of the solution, DQM is easy to program, and also various complicated factors of the consolidation problem can be considered.