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Surcharge Essay

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The process is done by simply placing a surcharge fill on top of the soil that requires consolidation. The excess load is referred to as surcharge load. The load must be placed in several stages so as to prevent instability. Once the predicted consolidation is achieved, the fill can be removed and construction can be started. Surcharge which was installed as a temporary load, can be removed when the settlements exceed the foretold final settlement. Normally this is done only after the remaining excess pore water pressure becomes less than the stress increase caused by the temporary surcharge. If the surcharge is higher than the work load, the soil will always be in an over consolidated state.
The secondary compression for over consolidated soil is much smaller than that of normally consolidated soil. The secondary settlement can be reduced or even eliminated either by increasing the time of temporary overloading or by using a heavier overload.
Advantages of preloading:
• Equipment cost is less since only conventional earthmoving equipment is needed.
• Any contractor can perform the work, as specialized knowledge in not required.
• Consolidation can be accelerated …show more content…

Generally this technique requires the application of a surcharge loading to squeeze water out of the soft clay soils. Such loading must be equal to or in excess of the service loading to which the developed land will be subjected. In vacuum consolidation, the vacuum pressure applied contributes to the surcharge loading, an actual surcharge heights are reduced. An additional important advantage of the vacuum is the isotropic nature of the vacuum pressure and the correlated improvement of the stability under preloading, reducing considerably the risk of slope failure resulting from the

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