Soft clay stabilisation using prefabricated vertical drains and the role of viscous creep at the site of Sunshine Motorway, Queensland

The Soft Soil Creep and the Soft Soil models are employed to analyse the behaviour of the Sunshine Embankment with and without prefabricated vertical drains. Details of the analysis are discussed in terms of settlements, excess pore pressures and lateral displacements. While both models can predict the settlement well, the Creep model gives a greater accuracy in the prediction of excess pore pressures and lateral movements. The analysis suggests that the undissipated excess pore pressures during consolidation may have been caused by the viscous nature of soils.