scholarly journals Geosynthetic Encased Columns Supporting Rail Infrastructure – Perspectives on Research and Case Studies

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erol Guler ◽  
Cihan Cengiz ◽  
Oliver Detert
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Ground Improvement ◽  
Soft Soil ◽  
Academic Research ◽  
Major Effect ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Shaking Table ◽  
Stone Columns ◽  
Soil Conditions ◽  
Rail Network

Significant investments are being made towards enhancing the reach of the railway infrastructure due to the vast economic benefits it brings. An inevitable consequence of the expansion of the rail network is the soft soil conditions encountered in the alignment. Geosynthetic encased columns (GEC) is a proven ground improvement technology which can be adapted as soil remediation technique for such conditions. In this paper, first an introduction to the concept of GECs will be given. Then the recent advances in the academic research on the GECs will be elaborated. As it is known, earthquakes are one of the most devastating disasters and certainly also have a major effect on transportation infrastructure. In this paper results of shaking table tests to compare ordinary stone columns and GECs behavior under earthquake loading conditions will also be presented. The brief recap of the state of the art on the geosynthetic encased columns including their earthquake behavior will be followed by case studies on three major projects where the site conditions and project requirements will be discussed. The significant benefits of geosynthetic encased columns in relation to project requirements will also be elaborated.

scholarly journals A Review on the Behaviour of Combined Stone Columns and Pile Foundations in Soft Soils when Placed under Rigid Raft Foundation

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Danish Ahmed ◽  
Siti Noor Linda Bt Taib ◽  
Tahar Ayadat ◽  
Alsidqi Hasan
Keyword(s):  
Ground Improvement ◽  
Soft Soil ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Stone Columns ◽  
Attractive Alternative ◽  
Soft Soils ◽  
Ongoing Research ◽  
Piled Raft Foundation ◽  
Raft Foundation ◽  
Raft Foundations

In the last few decades, it has been observed that raft foundations are very commonly used as a foundation solution for moderate to high rise structures either by resting on stone columns or on piles in soft soils. It is believed that, combining stone columns and piles in one foundation system is the more suitable foundation for medium rise structures. The combined foundation system provides a superior and more economical alternative to pile, and a more attractive alternative to stone columns in respect to ground improvement. This paper presents the review of existing studies reported in the literature in the last two decades about the behaviour of stone columns under raft foundations and piled raft foundation in soft soil, notably the failure mechanism and the bearing capacity. Also, a limited work from the literature concerning the performance of combined (pile/stone columns) foundation system in soft soil is comprised. Furthermore, very extensive ongoing research work regarding the investigation and study on the performance of combined (pile/stone columns) foundation system in soft soils is discussed. The main goals and methodology to study the performance of the combined (pile/stone columns) foundation systems in soft soil are also addressed.

INNOVATIVE SOFT SOIL IMPROVEMENT BY VACUUM DE-WATERING AND DYNAMIC COMPACTION

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tuncer B. Edil
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Ground Improvement ◽  
Soft Soil ◽  
High Vacuum ◽  
Cohesive Soil ◽  
Soil Improvement ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Dynamic Compaction ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
Improvement Method

Recently, an innovative soft soil improvement method was advanced in China by integrating and modifying vacuum consolidation and dynamic compaction ground improvement techniques in an intelligent and controlled manner. This innovative soft soil improvement method is referred to as “High Vacuum Densification Method (HVDM)” to reflect its combined use of vacuum de-watering and dynamic compaction techniques in cycles. Over the past ten years, this innovative soft soil improvement technique has been successfully used in China and Asia for numerous large-scale soft soil improvement projects, from which enormous time and cost savings have been achieved. In this presentation, the working principles of the HVDM will be described. A discussion of the range of fine-grained, cohesive soil properties that would make them ideal for applying HVDM as an efficient ground improvement method will be discussed. The economic benefits and environmental benefits of HVDM are elucidated.

scholarly journals Feedback of the behaviour of a silo founded on a compressible soil improved by floating stone columns

2018 ◽  
Vol 149 ◽  
pp. 02008
Author(s):  
Ramdane Bahar ◽  
Omar Sadaoui ◽  
Fatma Zohra Yagoub
Keyword(s):  
Soft Soil ◽  
Limit State ◽  
Soil Improvement ◽  
Stone Columns ◽  
Soil Conditions ◽  
Deep Foundations ◽  
The Stability ◽  
Compressible Soil ◽  
The City ◽  
Ongoing Monitoring

The coastal city of Bejaia, located 250 kilometers east of the capital Algiers, Algeria, is characterized by soft soils. The residual grounds encountered on the first 40 meters usually have a low bearing capacity, high compressibility, insufficient strength, and subject to the risk of liquefaction. These unfavorable soil conditions require deep foundations or soil improvement. Since late 1990s, stone columns technique is used to improve the weak soils of the harbor area of the city. A shallow raft foundation on soft soil improved by stone columns was designed for a heavy storage steel silo and two towers. The improvement of 18m depth have not reached the substratum located at 39m depth. The stresses transmitted to the service limit state are variable 73 to 376 kPa. A rigorous and ongoing monitoring of the evolution of loads in the silo and settlements of the soil was carried out during 1400 days that is from the construction of foundations in 2008 to 2012. After the loading of the silo in 2010, settlement occurred affecting the stability of the towers due to excessive differential settlements. Consequently, the towers were inclined and damaged the transporter. This paper presents and discusses the experience feedback of the behavior of these structures. Numerical calculations by finite elements have been carried and the results are compared with the measurements.

Field performance of the port of Sepetiba test fills

1995 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 106-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vinod K. Garga ◽  
Luciano V. Medeiros
Keyword(s):  
Ground Improvement ◽  
Soft Soil ◽  
Soft Clay ◽  
Field Performance ◽  
Stone Columns ◽  
Field Investigations ◽  
Large Program ◽  
Soil Deposits ◽  
Load Tests ◽  
The Cost

The design of the industrial port of Sepetiba, 50 km south of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, required a detailed evaluation of the underlying soft soil deposits. Initially, on the basis of laboratory tests, it was proposed to remove approximately 3.7 × 106 m3 of the very soft deposits in the stockpile area by dredging and substitute with hydraulic sand fill. Subsequently, in view of the cost of such a measure, a large program of field investigations was initiated to study the in situ characteristics of the soft clay to evaluate whether replacement of this material and (or) ground improvement was necessary. As part of this investigation, two large identically instrumented test fills (test fills B and D), each 65 m2 in plan and 5 m high, with 3:1 slopes were constructed. Test fill B was constructed over natural ground, whereas the subsoil beneath test fill D was treated with stone columns. The instrumentation for each test fill consisted of piezometers, deep settlement plates, surface settlement plates, and inclinometers. This paper provides a description of the field investigations, observations on installation of stone columns, analysis of instrumentation, a comparison of the behaviour of the two test fills, and a discussion on load tests on individual stone columns. Key words : case history, embankment, ground improvement, instrumentation, soft clay, stone columns.

scholarly journals Settlement Behaviour of Soft Soil Reinforced with Geogrid Encased Stone Column under Sustained Loading

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 1307-1311
Keyword(s):  
Ground Improvement ◽  
Soft Soil ◽  
Stone Columns ◽  
Stone Column ◽  
Replacement Ratio ◽  
Sustained Loading ◽  
Settlement Behavior ◽  
Column Material ◽  
Area Replacement Ratio ◽  
Different Diameters

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.

scholarly journals Comparison between unit cell and plane strain models of stone column ground improvement

2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 263
Author(s):  
Maryam Gaber ◽  
Anuar Kasa ◽  
Norinah Abdul Rahman ◽  
Jamal Alsharef
Keyword(s):  
Stress Concentration ◽  
Plane Strain ◽  
Clayey Soil ◽  
Cell Model ◽  
Ground Improvement ◽  
Soft Soil ◽  
Unit Cell ◽  
Stone Columns ◽  
Stone Column ◽  
The Impact

This article presents a comparative study of the behaviour of clayey soil reinforcements using stone column ground improvement by means of numerical analyses. Two-dimensional finite element analyses with commercially available software, PLAXIS, were performed on end-bearing stone columns using 15-noded triangular elements to investigate the impact of the modelling type on the stress concentration ratio and failure mechanism of an improved foundation system. Consolidation analyses were conducted throughout the study using Mohr-Coulomb’s criterion. The computed values of the stress concentration ratios were compared for different key parameters, including the diameters of stone columns, c/c spacing of columns, friction angle of stone column material, and undrained cohesion of soft soil. The major conclusions of this study were that the stone column in the unit cell model shared between 2.5 to 3.14 times more loads than the surrounding soil, whilst in the plane strain model it shared between 1.7 to 2.9 times more loads. The use of plane strain approach to model the stone column gave a more comprehensive representation of the stress distribution and load transfer between the soil and columns, in addition to being a better method than the unit cell concept to evaluate the failure mode in this system.

scholarly journals CALCULATION OF VERTICAL DEFORMATIONS OF THE FOUNDATIONS ON THE SOFT SOIL IMPROVED BY GEOTEXTILE ENCASED STONE COLUMNS

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 64-76
Author(s):  
R. I Shenkman ◽  
A. B Ponomaryov
Keyword(s):  
Numerical Modeling ◽  
Soft Soil ◽  
Experimental Studies ◽  
Elementary Cell ◽  
Stone Columns ◽  
Soil Conditions ◽  
Good Convergence ◽  
Engineering Technique ◽  
Calculation Results ◽  
Vertical Deformations

The article provides information on research in the field of improving weak clay bases by installing vertical soil piles in a shell of geosynthetic materials (geotextile encased stone columns). This method has proven to be effective for strengthening the foundations of large areal objects in certain soil conditions, but has not become widespread as a method for improving the foundations of building foundations, which, among other things, is due to the lack of simple engineering methods for calculating the improvement parameters. The article presents an engineering technique for determining the settlement of shallow foundations on a weak clay base which is improved by the geotextile encased stone columns. The technique is based on considering the elementary cell of the improved foundation for which the pressure distribution in the weak soil and the improvement element is determined by the iterative enumeration process. This distribution should ensure equality of the vertical deformations of the improvement element and the soft soil, which should be the same due to the stiffness of the foundation of the building or structure. The calculation of the deformations of a geotextile encased stone columns is carried out by solving the Lamé problem and the deformations of soft soil by standard methods presented in the regulatory literature. Comparison of the calculation results by the proposed method with the data of numerical modeling in an axisymmetric setting is presented. In the numerical modeling of the soil, the Mohr-Coulomb elastic-plastic model was used. Geosynthetic reinforcement was modeled using a special element that only accepts tensile stresses. The rigidity of the foundation of the base is taken to be infinitely large. The analysis of the presented simulation results showed good convergence of the calculations with the data of experimental studies and the data of numerical simulation using the finite element method.

scholarly journals Laboratory Model Tests on Consolidation Performance of Soil Column with Drained-Timber Rod

2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
X. J. Chai ◽  
K. Deng ◽  
C. F. He ◽  
Y. F. Xiong
Keyword(s):  
Precast Concrete ◽  
Ground Improvement ◽  
Soft Soil ◽  
Soil Column ◽  
Water Discharge ◽  
Soft Clay ◽  
Economic Benefits ◽  
Laboratory Model ◽  
Engineering Practice ◽  
Timber Piles

Timber pile is an ancient technology applied in soft ground improvement for more than 1000 years. With the rise of many high-rise buildings, many types of modern mechanized-construction piles are widely developed and applied; for example, steel pile, precast concrete pile, sand pile, and gravel pile are widely used instead of timber piles. Yet, in some special conditions, timber piles have certain advantages due to their environment-friendly characteristics, which result in obvious economic benefits and suitability. To overcome the weakness of the traditional timber pile technology and expand its application in engineering practice, a drained-timber pile technique was put forward. This technology is to wrap the permeable filter-type drainage geotextile around the timber pile, so that the timber pile not only has the replacement function to strengthen the foundation but also has the drainage function, can accelerate the pore water discharge, and speeds up the soft soil foundation consolidation. The reduced scale soil-column consolidation model was designed to perform the consolidation tests for the soil column with a drained-timber rod. In total, eight types of soil-column consolidation tests were carried out to verify the feasibility and effectiveness of the drained-timber pile technique. The results revealed that, under the same loading and consolidation time, the drained-timber rod can obviously increase the degree of consolidation when compared with traditional timber rod. It can be expected that the drained-timber pile technique has a good application prospect for the construction of medium-small hydraulic structures and for the treatment of super soft clay.

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