Evaluating the stability of seawalls constructed on soft soils is critical but challenging. Traditional methods often depend on whether settlement velocity exceeds predefined thresholds, which can overlook subtle settlement fluctuations and may be less adaptable to varying construction and environmental conditions. To overcome these limitations, this paper presents a novel evaluation framework that combines a new settlement‐to‐loading index with a permutation entropy (PE) algorithm. By incorporating both settlement velocity and loading, the proposed index captures the behavior of seawalls under complex load conditions more comprehensively than fixed settlement velocity thresholds. The PE algorithm is then employed to analyze the time‐series data of the settlement‐to‐loading index, enabling the detection of small‐scale, transient fluctuations, which is a critical feature for soft soil scenarios characterized by significant and sporadic settlement spikes. A case study of a seawall in China demonstrates that this combined approach is more sensitive than conventional methods, effectively signaling early instabilities resulting from minor construction activities or rapid loading changes. Overall, the proposed method offers a physically meaningful, adaptable, and practical approach for evaluating seawall stability on soft soils, potentially reducing misjudgment in coastal infrastructure projects.
Qin et al. (Thu,) studied this question.