Abstract:Loading conditions are complicated in practical vacuum preloading combined with surcharge engineering, and it has a great influence on the development of foundation settlement. The field settlement curve after full load has the same characteristics as that under equivalent linear load. According to this phenomenon, the final settlement inversion method through measured settlement of late stage is proposed based on the consolidation theory of ground with vertical drains under equivalent linear load. The method is coded into a program for application and it is used to analyze an engineering case. It shows that the result obtained by the present method is closer to that obtained by three-point method, and it can avoid the shortcomings of the three-point method using only individual data points. The final settlement predicted by the experienced hyperbolic law is the largest. It can lead to smaller consolidation degree in practical engineering.