This paper presents a "nite element procedure for the analysis of consolidation of layered soils with vertical drain using general one-dimensional (1-D) constitutive models. In formulating the "nite element procedure, a Newton}Cotes-type integration formula is used to avoid the unsymmetry of the sti!ness matrix for a Newton (Modi"ed Newton) iteration scheme. The proposed procedure is then applied for the consolidation analysis of a number of typical problems using both linear and non-linear soil models. Results from this simpli"ed method are compared with those from a fully coupled consolidation analysis using a well-known "nite element package. The average degree of consolidation, excess porewater pressure and average vertical e!ective stress are almost the same as those from the fully coupled analysis for both the linear and non-linear cases studied. The di!erences in vertical e!ective stresses are tolerable except for the values near the vertical drain boundaries. The consolidation behaviour of soils below a certain depth of the bottom of vertical drain is actually one-dimensional for the partially penetrating case. Therefore, there are not much di!erences in whether one uses a one-dimensional model or a three-dimensional model in this region. The average degree of consolidation has good normalized feature with respect to the ratio of well radius to external drainage boundary for the cases of fully penetrating vertical drain using a normalized time even in the non-linear case. Numerical results clearly demonstrate that the proposed simpli"ed "nite element procedure is e$cient for the consolidation analysis of soils with vertical drain and it has better numerical stability characteristics. This simpli"ed method can easily account for layered systems, time-dependent loading, well-resistance, smear e!ects and inelastic stress}strain behaviour. This method is also very suitable for the design of vertical drain, since it greatly reduces the unknown variables in the calculation and the 1-D soil model parameters can be more easily determined.