## 5 Analysis of Consolidation Degree  
In this section, a parametric is conducted to study the 1D nonlinear consolidation characteristics of soft clays with Hansbo's flow. Figure 4 shows the influence of interface parameter \(\alpha\) on the ACDS. It is found that with the increase of the interface parameter, the soil consolidation rate gradually increases, and the gap between the present solution and [PERSON]'s solution gradually decreases. When the value of \(\alpha\) is relatively small, the increase of \(\alpha\) will greatly improve the ACDS. However, when the value of \(\alpha\) is relatively large, the increase of \(\alpha\) has little effect on the ACDS. In the early stage of consolidation, the soil consolidation rate of the present solution is slower than that of [PERSON]'s solution [23]. In the middle and late stages of consolidation, the soil consolidation rate of the present solution is significantly faster than that of [PERSON]'s solution [23]. The time required for complete consolidation of soil calculated by the present solution and [PERSON]'s solution [23] is roughly the same, which shows that when the improvement of soil is designed according to the CDB in engineering practice, although the soil consolidation rate is slow in the early stage of consolidation, the soil is more fully consolidated in the middle and late stages of consolidation, and the soil consolidation rate can be controlled by choosing the interface parameter. Figure 4: Influence of the interface parameter on ACDS [23]. Figure 3: Comparison of ACDs obtained from different drainage boundaries [23]. Figure 5 depicts the influence of the \(m\) value on the ACDS and ACDEPWP. According to Equation (1), when \(i\leq i_{1}\), \(v=\frac{Ki}{m}(\frac{i}{i_{1}})^{m-1}\), the seepage velocity decreases with the increase of the \(m\) value; when \(i>i_{1}\), \(v=K(i-i_{1}\frac{m-1}{m})\), the seepage velocity also decreases with the increase of the \(m\) value. During the consolidation process, the larger the \(m\) value, the slower the seepage velocity in the soil. As shown in Figure 5, the ACDs decrease with the increase of the \(m\) value, which shows that the calculated soil consolidation rate is faster when the non-Darcy flow is not considered. In addition, it can be seen that \(U_{\text{s}}\) is always greater than \(U_{\text{p}}\), indicating that the soil settlement rate is greater than the dissipation rate of EPWP during the consolidation process. Figure 6 illustrates the influence of the \(c\) value on the ACDS and ACDEPWP. It is found that both \(U_{\text{s}}\) and \(U_{\text{p}}\) decrease with the increase of the \(c\) value. According to Equation (11), with the increase of the \(c\) value, the value of \((b-U)^{-c}\) gradually decreases, thus the soil consolidation rate will decrease. In addition, for any \(c\) value, the ACDS is greater than that defined by settlement, indicating that the soil settlement rate is greater than the dissipation rate of EPWP during the consolidation process. Setting \(I_{1}=1\) and \(c=0.5\), Figures 7 and 8 show the influence of the \(b\) value on the ACDS when \(m=1\) and \(m=1.5\), in which \(m=1\) means Darcy seepage and \(m=1.5\) means  
Figure 5: Influence of the \(m\) value on ACDs. Figure 6: Influence of the \(c\) value on ACDs. non-Darcy flow, respectively. The value of \(b\) is the ratio of the final effective stress to the initial effective stress, and the greater the external load, the greater the value of \(b\). It is found that in both the ACDs obtained by the present solution and [PERSON]'s solution [23], \(U_{\text{s}}\) increases as the \(b\) value increases, which indicates that when the \(c\) value is relatively small (i.e., \(c=0.5\) in this case), the soil settlement rate increases with the increase of external load. In addition, the value of \(U_{\text{s}}\) calculated by the present solution is always smaller than that of [PERSON]'s solution [23]. At the early stage of consolidation, the two solutions have a large gap.