A methodology for parameter identification of poro-viscoelastic models of soft soil

A methodology for identifying the values of the parameters that go into a general linear poro-viscoelastic soil model is presented. Such a model is deemed useful for modeling a consolidating soil with intrinsic time-dependent effects. In the process of developing the identification methodology, the theory of one-dimensional poro-viscoelasticity has been generalized as well as a semi-analytic solution of consolidation in an oedometer test has been developed. The values of the model parameters are regressed using the Levenburg-Marquadt nonlinear regression technique on the basis of fitting the theoretical semi-analytic solutions to the measured oedometer test data. This methodology is generally applicable to any chosen poro-viscoelastic model.