Equivalent plane strain modeling of vertical drains in soft ground under embankment combined with vacuum preloading

A conversion method is proposed to convert from an axisymmetric unit cell to an equivalent plane strain unit cell under embankment loading combined with vacuum preloading. To verify the proposed method, we have conducted FE analyses for two cases of subsoil, one is a subsoil having only one homogeneous clay layer, and the other one is a subsoil having two clay layers. The analyzed results showed that the effects of both well resistance (in the vertical drain) and smear zone (around the vertical drain) are satisfactorily modeled by the proposed plane strain unit cell in both cases.