Estimating Primary Consolidation Settlement in a Clay Till Foundation Below an Earthen Embankment
Bibliographic record
Abstract
This study focused on predicting the time rate of consolidation and settlement magnitude of a clay till foundation beneath a large earthen embankment constructed in Brandon, southwest Manitoba. The stratigraphic profile at the site consists of an upper complex of sand, silt, and fill materials overlying a thick overconsolidated clay till unit and underlying clay shale. Soil samples collected from the clay till, along with in-situ Seismic Cone Penetrometer Testing (SCPTU) and Reaming Pressuremeter Testing (RPM) results, were provided for this research. Additionally, monitoring data collected during embankment construction, including surveyed embankment heights and Vibrating Wire Piezometer (VWP) data, were also provided for this research. To evaluate the hydraulic and consolidation characteristics of the clay till, incremental loading (IL) and constant rate of strain (CRS) consolidation tests were conducted at the University of Saskatchewan. Laboratory data were compared to the soil response measured in-situ, and material properties were selected based on both laboratory and in-situ test results. The material properties were then used to define the foundation soils in a finite element method (FEM) model, developed to simulate embankment construction and perform deformation analyses. The hydraulic conductivity of the clay till, as determined by laboratory and in-situ tests, was estimated to range from 1x10-10 m/s to 1x10-11 m/s. However, deformation analysis indicated that these values represent the matrix permeability of the clay till, as the model significantly overpredicted excess porewater pressure generated during embankment construction compared to VWP field data. By adjusting the hydraulic conductivity to 1x10-6 m/s for all till units, the model showed better agreement with field data. This suggests that groundwater flow at the site is controlled by the macro-structure hydraulic conductivity, which is likely governed by fractures within the clay till that developed due to stress changes from repeated glacial advances and retreats. Finally, a comparison was made between a linear elastic soil model, and a model incorporating nonlinear soil stiffness. The nonlinear deformation analysis aimed to improve settlement predictions by defining the entire nonlinear behaviour of the clay till foundation.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".