3. Calculation of settlements

3.1 General

There are three classes of calculation methods for soil mass settlements:

• odometer-type calculations, generally applied for embankments, inverts and large loads in relation to the thickness of deformable soils, particularly saturated and compressible clay soils;

• pressuremeter calculations, which are frequently used in France to assess the settlement of surface foundations, particularly for granular soils (sands and gravels, which are often difficult to sample and characterize in the laboratory);

• global calculations in elasticity or elastoplasticity, implemented using the finite element method.

The first two types of calculation...