scholarly journals Improvement of Soft Soil Using Linear Distributed Floating Stone Columns under Foundation Subjected to Static and Cyclic Loading

2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 702 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mahdi O Karkush ◽  
Anwar Jabbar

A stone column is one of the soil improvement methods that are mainly used for improving the geotechnical behavior of soft soils. For deep improvement of soft soil, the floating stone columns are considered the best and effective economically which provide lateral confinement and drainage and longitudinal skin friction. In this study, six tests were carried out on the natural soft soil of undrained shear strength of 5.5 kPa improved by single and two linear distributed floating stone columns. The stone column dimensions are 30 mm in diameter and 180 mm in length and the stone column material is sand of high internal friction angle of 48°. The natural and improved soil samples are tested under isolated raft foundation of dimensions 120×120 mm subjected to vertical static and cyclic loading of frequency 2Hz and continued for 50 seconds. The results showed a significant improvement in soil bearing capacity when reinforced with stone columns despite the small area replacement ratio, where the bearing capacity of improved soil increased by 120 to 145%. The compressibility of improved soil decreased by 57 to 86% in comparison with that of natural soft soil. Also, the floating stone columns reduced the porewater pressure, where the stone columns considered efficient in providing short drainage pathways. This can be one of the reasons why soil reinforced with floating stone columns hold higher cyclic and static stresses regardless the end bearing of stone columns.

The use of stone columns in improving the bearing capacity of soft soil is well researched, but the understanding of settlement requires further studies. This paper presents the results of a series of laboratory tests carried out to study the settlement behavior of soft soil bed reinforced with ordinary stone column (OSC) and Geogrid encased stone columns (GESC). Kaolin was used as the soft soil and stones of size from 2.5 to 10 mm were used as column material. The stone columns of four different diameters were installed, by the method of replacement, into the soil having undrained shear strength of 22.5 kPa. The OSC and GESC test beds were subjected to pressure of 250 and 300 kPa. Each pressure was sustained for 24 hours and the settlement of the composite soil with time was noted. It is found that Geogrid encased stone columns have small settlement than the corresponding ordinary stone columns. The SRR (settlement reduction ratio) being a measure of ground improvement, is found increasing with the area replacement ratio. Further, at a particular sustained pressure SRR is found more for GESC than the corresponding value for OSC.


2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (8) ◽  
pp. 1593-1608
Author(s):  
Imad Eddine Debbabi ◽  
Remadna Mohamed Saddek ◽  
Ahmad Safuan A. Rashid ◽  
Abubakar Sadiq Muhammed

The present research work is concerned with the construction of road embankments on a specific soil called Sabkha in Algeria. This soil is not only soft and very humid during the flooding seasons but also has frequent small areas of very soft soil which we here call Locally Weak Zones (LWZ). LWZ is characterized by low strength and high compressibility. The paper presents the results of two-dimensional axisymmetric numerical analyze that were carried out using PLAXIS 2D 2017, for the modeling of an embankment supported by stone columns on Sabkha soil. The study focuses on the evaluation of the maximum bulging of the stone column and on the settlement of the embankment. It has been demonstrated that Ordinary Stone Columns (OSC) were ineffective due to excessive bulging (221.16 mm) caused by the lack of lateral pressure. On the other hand, the Encased Stone Columns (ESC) showed good behavior, namely a much reduced bulging (42.09 mm) and a reasonable settlement (0.962 m vs. 1.560 m for an OSC) so that it is possible to build safe very high embankments. The numerical analysis also shows that the length of the encasement should just be greater than the depth of the LWZ. Besides, an extensive parametric study was conducted to investigate the effects of the variations of embankment height, stiffness of geosynthetic, the depth of the locally weak zone, area replacement ratio (ARR), and the stone column friction angle, on the performance of the (ESC) - embankment composite in (LWZ). Some important guidelines for selecting the ideal encased stone column (ESC) to support embankments on over locally weak zone were established through this numerical study.


Author(s):  
Nahla Mohammed Salim ◽  
Shatha Hasan ◽  
Kawther Al-Soudany

Many researchers’ studies have shown that stone column is the best material to use to improve the bearing capacity of clayey soils. There are millions of waste volumes resulting from daily human activities. This excess waste leads to disposal problems and also causes environmental contamination and health risks. Demolished concrete is such one waste material that is produced from building demolition in Baghdad, Iraq. This paper describes experimental work conducted at the University of Technology that was carried out to investigate the improved bearing capacity of soft clay using crushed stone, followed by replacing crushed stone with concrete waste with the same relative density and grain size. The replacement was carried using waste concrete with different percentages corresponding to 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100%. The main conclusion drawn is that the bearing capacity increased to 119% by using crushed stone column, while the bearing capacity increased to 155% by using 100% of crushed concrete waste.


2021 ◽  
Vol 318 ◽  
pp. 01006
Author(s):  
Zeena A. Al-Kazzaz ◽  
Moataz A. Al-Obaydi

Soil improvement by stone columns is extensively used, especially for the soft ones. This is because of their efficiency and no environmental impact. Several factors affect its efficiency in improving the mechanical properties of the soil, and the most important of these factors are the spacing, length, and diameter of the stone columns. In this study, the finite element method was used to study the impact of the spacing between the stone columns on the amount of settlement and the bearing capacity of the soil. The study comprises three different spaces (s) that were taken in relation to the columns’ diameter (d), which are (s/d= 3, 4, and 5). In addition, three types of the sectional shape of column involved circular, rectangular, and square sections with different lengths of (L/d=2, 4, 6, 8, and 10). The results showed that the spacing between the stone columns is effective when the vertical load is greater than 30 kN/m2, and below this, there is no effect of the spacing. In general, the settlement decreases, and the bearing capacity increases with the decrease in the spacing between the stone columns. The spacing becomes a more pronounced effect with the longer length of the stone columns. All sections of the stone columns with a short length of (L/d=2) showed the same settlement of 271 mm at a distance (s/d=5), which decreases by 7.4, 6.6, and 8.9% at a distance (s/d=3) for the circular, rectangular and square sections respectively. In the case of long columns (L/d=10), the settlement at (s/d=3) improves by about 27.5% which drop to about 18% at (s/d=5). A slight improvement in the soil's bearing capacity is associated with decreases in the spacing between the stone columns. The improvements in the bearing of soil treated with short columns (L/d=2) are 6.0, 6.5, and 4.7% for circular, rectangular, and square sections, respectively, when changing the distance from (s/d=5) to (s/d=3). Whereas they become greater when increasing the columns’ length to (L/d=10) to be 7.9, 9.2, and 6.4%.


2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (08) ◽  
pp. 538-548
Author(s):  
Mandeep Singh ◽  
◽  
Dr Prashant Garg ◽  

In the building industry, ground improvement techniques based on stone column are widely employed. It is a very successful approach for enhancing the engineering characteristics of soil in all aspects, as well as reducing the settling issue in poor-grounded soils including silt, clay, silty sand, and organic soil. The performance of stone columns, is determined by the confining pressure provided by the surrounding soils. Engineering constructions built on thick layers of soft soil strata face issues such as limited bearing capacity, excessive total and differential settlement, lateral spreading, and so on. To address such issues, many ground improvement techniques are available. In exceptionally soft soils, the lateral confining pressure may be inadequate, resulting in column bulging failure. Individual stone column encasement improves lateral resistance to bulging by adding restricting pressure. This research focuses on the geotechnical aspects of building on closed landfill sites. A total of 33 models were tested in a geotechnical engineering laboratory on virgin former landfill soil and stone column with and without encasement in this current study. The increased diameter, length and L/D ratio of the column has demonstrated that the load capacity has increased and soil settling has decreased. When an unreinforced stone column has been installed, the ultimate bearing capacity of landfill soil is increased by 75-112.50 per cent and 87.50-176 per cent respectively, for 10mm and 20mm diameter stone column. Furthermore, when a fully reinforced stone column has been installed, it had increased by 156.25-212.50 per cent and 200-298 per cent for 10mm and 20mm diameters respectively. The stiffness of soil is increased by the stone column, which contributes to increase in the load capacity. The geogrid layer confines an aggregate, which contribute to enhance shear stiffness and bearing capacity.


2018 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 33-38
Author(s):  
Kwa S.F. ◽  
Kolosov E.S.

The behavior of the fully saturated clay soil reinforced by stone columns subjected to cyclic load is of considerable very important in the design of railway subgrades, these soft clay soil are characterized by high settlement and low bearing capacity because of the excess pore pressure due to heavy freight trains significantly reduces the bearing capacity which causes serious problems, the used of stone column for reinforced the saturated clay soil will reduced the settlement and increase the bearing capacity. The purpose of the current research is cases study of foundation soil improvement by reduced the settlement for a building structure using stone columns system with and without geogrid encasement under cyclic load with rate of loading 5 mm/sec.


Author(s):  
Mahdi Karkush ◽  
◽  
Anwar Jabbar ◽  

One of the common geotechnical problems is the construction on soft soil and the improvement of its geotechnical properties to meet the design requirements. A stone column is one of the well-known techniques used to improve the geotechnical properties of soft soils. Sometimes thick layers of soft soil imposed the designer to use floating stone columns for improvement of such soil; in this case, the designer will be lost the end bearing of the stone column. In this study, the effects of several patterns of floating stone columns distribution under footing on the bearing capacity of soil and the distribution of excess porewater pressure are investigated. The soft soil used in this study has a very low undrained shear strength (cu) of 5.5 kPa and improved by several patterns of stone columns (single, two linear, triangular, square, and quadrilateral). The stone column has a length of 180 mm and a diameter of 30 mm. The material of the stone column is poorly graded sand has an angle of internal friction (48.5°) at a relative density of 65%. The results indicated a significant increase in the ultimate bearing capacity of soft soil when treated with floating stone columns despite the small ratio of area replacement and reducing the excess porewater pressure and settlement. Also, the ultimate bearing capacity of soil calculated from experimental work is compared with the corresponding values obtained from the proposed equations in the previous studies to evaluate the validity of using such equations.


2020 ◽  
Vol 857 ◽  
pp. 319-327
Author(s):  
Moataz A. Al-Obaydi ◽  
Zeena A. Al-Kazzaz

Stone columns have been used widely to improve the engineering properties of the weak soil. Most of the previous works considered a circular section for the stone columns. In the present study, finite element analysis has been carried out to investigate the effect of stone columns shape and length on the settlement and bearing capacity of soft soil. Accordingly, three types of cross sectional shape for stone columns have been selected which they are circular, rectangular, and square sections with equivalent area. Various length of columns are adopted with diameter of 0.75m that achieved length to diameter or equivalent diameter ratios (L/d=2, 4, 6, 8, and 10) of columns spacing (S/d=3). The results show that the stone columns has tangible effects on the settlement of the soil while has minor effects on the bearing capacity. The settlement of the treated soil with stone columns have L/d=2, reduces by 18.0, 17.3, and 19.3% for circular, rectangular , and square sections respectively. With increasing length of the columns to L/d=10, further reductions in the settlement obtained of (27.1, 28.1, and 27.0%). Bearing capacity of the soil increased slightly with length of the stone columns. Almost all cross sectional shapes of the columns give bearing capacity about same. The increased in the bearing capacity of the treated soil with stone columns have L/d=2, not exceeded 10% for all sectional types. The average increments in bearing capacity when L/d=10 are 12 and 15% at settlement 50 and 100mm respectively. Insignificant changes in bearing capacity upon increasing length of columns from L/d=2 to 10 of maximum 5%. The plastic zone recedes with the increasing length of the stone columns. Finally, from the results obtained, it can be concluded that the stone columns shape has negligible effects on the settlement and bearing capacity of the soil.


2011 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 17-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Pivarč

Stone Columns - Determination of the soil improvement factorA stone column is one of the soil stabilizing methods that is used to increase strength, decrease the compressibility of soft and loose fine graded soils, accelerate a consolidation effect and reduce the liquefaction potential of soils. The columns consist of compacted gravel or crushed stone arranged by a vibrator. This paper deals with Priebe's theory (1976) on the design of an improvement factor, which belongs among the most used analytical methods and also describes the numerical and laboratory models of stone columns. The improvement factors calculated from numerical and laboratory models are compared with the improvement factors resulting from Priebe's theory.


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