Abstract: The creep settlement dominates the long-term deformation of high fill foundation after construction and cannot be ignored. The reliable prediction of creep settlement provides an important guideline for judging whether settlement is stable and arranging subsequent construction. The modification of the traditional power law model for predicting the one-dimensional creep deformation of soil is proposed, which can describe the one-dimensional creep deformation of clay, sand and soil-rock mixture. The modified model satisfies the requirement that the growth of the creep deformation has an asymptote with respect to time; that is to say, the creep deformation grows continually and approaches a constant with time. The proposed model has only two parameters, which can be easily obtained from oedometer tests. Then, a simplified algorithm to predict the creep settlement of high fill foundation is developed based on the proposed model. The simplified algorithm has two parameters, which can be determined using the field settlement monitoring data. Based on the field settlement monitoring data of high fill in Longnan Chengxian Airport, Cangyuan Washan Airport and Lüliang Dawu Airport, the fitting and prediction results of the proposed simplified algorithm are compared with those of other three curve fitting algorithms commonly used in geotechnical engineering. The results show that the proposed simplified algorithm can predict the creep settlement of high fill foundation more effectively and accurately.

Key words: high fill, foundation, creep settlement, settlement prediction