Decision Support System for Land Reclamation Using Prefabricated Vertical Drains

The need for additional port capacity has rapidly risen over the last few years due to globalization. Due to high cost of land procurement, land reclamation has become a very promising alternative for expanding and constructing new ports. The presence of soft marine clay poses a major challenge for port development as it requires ground improvement. The use of Prefabricated Vertical Drain(PVD) with preloading has become a popular method of ground improvement because of the ease and speed of installation. The process to establish PVD design is complex and involves tedious calculations. If this is done manually, the designer has little opportunity to explore different design options and hence might not determine the most economical solution. A decision support system which automates aspects of the design process will enable the designer to arrive at a better solution taking into consideration project schedule, cost and construction method. This paper discusses the development of a DSS for PVD design using the MATLAB environment.