The effects of smear and well resistance should be taken into account for the design of sand drains. Practically, simple design, which employs the method using 112 reduced diameter of drains or assuming the coefficient of consolidation in horizontal direction equals to that in vertical direction, based on the theory neglecting these effects, has been used. In this study, the reliability of existing simple design methods as well as the influences of smear and well resistance was investigated with the equations proposed by Hansbo and Onoue. It is shown that the consolidation time is chiefly governed by the effect of smear for drains with highly permeable sands. For general soil condition and placing type of sand drain, consolidation time is underestimated for simple design wi어. 1/2 reduced diameter of drains, and it is overestimated for that with the assumption that the coefficient of consolidation in horizontal direction equals to that in vertical direction. Through the investigations on different reduced diameter, it was shown that simple design with 1/4 reduced diameter of drains yielded the reliable results with errors less than 6%.