Geophysics-Based Model for Determining Effective Stress in Soft Soils

Abstract Previous studies have shown that the shear wave velocity is governed mainly by the effective confining stresses and void ratio. This article presents an experimental study of geophysical measurements and shear wave velocities for soft soils under isotropic consolidation. The presented results show that the variation of effective stress during consolidation can be determined based on shear wave measurements. An approach to estimate consolidation processes based on a one-dimensional hypoplastic model with three parameters is presented. In addition, the proposed method showed favorable results for one-dimensional consolidation conditions. Based on the defined parameters of the model, it is possible to estimate the complete stress history of the soil.