This lecture is an example calculation of immediate, primary consolidation, and secondary consolidation settlement beneath a circular induced stress. The example includes a calculation of the time required for primary consolidation to reach 95%.

Critical Questions to Consider:
1) To compute the settlement for a particular soil sublayer, why does it matter how deep below the ground surface you are and where you are located beneath the footing footprint?

2) Why did we compute the time to complete 95% primary consolidation settlement instead of the time to complete 100% primary consolidation settlement?

3) Would we see more settlement beneath the center of a circular load or beneath the edge of the load? Why?