Society Of Marine Science and Technology International Journal Of Coastal, Offshore And Environmental Engineering(ijcoe) 2980-8731 Articles in Press 2024 08 19 New Finite Element Approach for Determination of PVDs configuration in Weak Marine Clay Treatment Projects 203043 10.22034/ijcoe.2024.396662.1032 EN Mohammad Mehdi Pardsouie Estahban azad university,Estahban , Iran 0000-0003-4693-7651 Mehdi Mokhberi Associate professor, Department of geotechnical engineering, Estahban Branch, Islamic Azad University, Estahban, Iran 0000-0002-8722-2612 Mohammad Hadi Pardsouie M.Sc. student, Department of civil engineering, Estahban Branch, Islamic Azad University, Estahban, Iran 0000-0001-5243-7376 Seyed Mohammad Ali Zomorodian Associate professor, Department of Water Engineering, Faculty of Agriculture, Shiraz University, Shiraz, Iran 0000-0002-2137-025X Journal Article 2023 05 10 A novel numerical procedure for optimization of prefabricated vertical drains (PVDs) depth and spacing under surcharge preloading is proposed. A case history is presented and verified and then the settlement, lateral displacement curves for different depth of installations that had lengths greater and smaller than the installation length in verified case, was modeled using finite element method (FEM). Based on the resultant settlement curves, two lengths were chosen that were used for a new model with “one and between” configuration. Despite a 17 percent reduction in PVDs installation, the overall system efficiency has been raised by 12 to 15 percent based on time. By applying this new method, the time needed for target settlement has decreased considerably, which in this case study was 115 days. As a result of greater depth of installation in comparison to common methods, the uneven settlement potential would decrease. The new proposed method has the potential to be substituted for the common method especially for situations where soil layers with high compressibility index exist underneath. The proposed FEM approach can be used for determination of optimum PVDs depth and spacing along with existing analytical and empirical solutions to attain economical and more efficient designs.