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Abstract Settlement deformations of soft estuarine deposit under applied loads are essential to embankment construction and land reclamation in coastal areas. Based on the laboratory tests，a soft soil model derived from the modified Cam-clay model is proposed to considering the inherent structure characteristics of soft estuarine soil. Using this soil model，a finite element numerical model with realistic geometric sizes and physical properties from an embankment engineering is established to investigate ground settlement and excess pore water pressure dissipation procedure of soft estuarine deposit. Two load conditions are taken into account in the same analysis model，one is large area uniform surcharge loads，and the other is newly-built sea embankment. The numerical model incorporates both effect of the prefabricated vertical drains(PVDs) installed in the underlying soil deposit and the stage construction process of the embankment in the analysis. Good resemblances are found for the in-situ monitoring data and the simulation results，both for vertical and lateral ground deformations. At the same time，the accumulation and dissipation processes of excess pore water pressure at different depths beneath embankment and backfill area are accurately simulated by the proposed numerical model.
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Received: 02 December 2009
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