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🏗️ Terzaghi's Theory of Soil Consolidation

Explore how saturated clay layers slowly settle under the weight of buildings and embankments as excess pore water pressure dissipates over time.

Civil Engineering & Structural Mechanics3DModerate60 FPS💧 Water 🌍 Earth

This simulator visualizes Terzaghi's one-dimensional consolidation process in a saturated clay layer, showing how excess pore water pressure dissipates with depth and time after a load is applied, and how the corresponding ground surface settlement accumulates as that pressure transfers to effective stress in the soil skeleton.

🔬 What It Demonstrates

🎮 How to Use

Set the clay layer thickness, choose whether drainage occurs from one or both boundaries, and adjust the coefficient of consolidation to represent different soil permeabilities and compressibilities. Apply a load and watch the pore pressure profile evolve across the layer over time while the settlement curve traces how much of the total settlement has occurred at each moment. Step through time or run the simulation continuously to compare fast-draining and slow-draining scenarios.

💡 Did You Know?

Some real clay deposits, such as those beneath Mexico City and parts of Shanghai, are still consolidating today from loads applied decades ago, with measurable settlement continuing long after the buildings above were completed.

⚙ Under the hood

Explore how saturated clay layers slowly settle under the weight of buildings and embankments as excess pore water pressure dissipates over time.

geotechnical engineeringsoil mechanicsconsolidationpore pressureeffective stressfoundation designclay settlementcivil engineering

3D · Three.js / WebGL renderer · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install