Consolidation of viscoelastic soil by vertical drains incorporating fractional-derivative model and time-dependent loading

This paper presents a general solution to the consolidation system of viscoelastic soil by vertical drains incorporating a fractional-derivative model and arbitrary time-dependent loading. The fractional-derivative Merchant model is introduced to describe the viscoelastic behavior of saturated soil around the vertical drains. Based on this model, the governing partial differential equation of a consolidation system incorporating vertical and horizontal drainage is obtained for the equal strain condition. Then, a general solution to the consolidation system involving arbitrary time-dependent loading is derived using the Laplace transform technique and eigenfunction expansion method. Further, two comparisons are presented to verify the exactness of the proposed solution, and the consolidation behavior involving four time-dependent loadings is illustrated and discussed.