Abstract:The governing equations of thermal consolidation for a homogeneous isotropic material are presented. The differences of thermal expansion between soil skeleton and pore water are discussed. According to the equations of equilibrium,principle of effective stresses,conservation of energy,and linear stress-strain relationship,the thermal consolidation problems of cylindrical heat source with infinite length for saturated soils are studied. Using Fourier transform,Laplace transform,and their inverse transforms,an approximate analytic solution is achieved under non-isothermal condition. Especially,the basic concepts of coefficient of thermal consolidation and thermal time factor are defined. Finally,the evolutions of temperature,pore water pressure and displacement along radial direction with time factor are analyzed by the proposed method.