Behavior of Horizontally Reinforced Stone Column in a Layered Soil: Enhancing Ground Improvement

Among all methods for ground improvement, stone columns have become more popular recently, owing to their simple construction and plentiful availability of raw materials. However, in relatively softer soils, ordinary stone columns (OSCs) experience significant bulging owing to the minimal confinement offered by the surrounding soil. This necessitates the introduction of reinforcements in the stone column, to enhance their strength in such circumstances. The subject of this investigation was the assessment of the behavior of horizontally reinforced stone columns (HRSCs), introduced in layered soil, under the raft foundation. The soil material included was idealised using an isotropic linearly elastic fully plastic model with a Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion. There are a total of six separate factors required by the Mohr-Coulomb criterion. These include cohesion (c), the soil's dry unit weight (γd), the Poisson ratio (μ), the angle of internal friction (φ), the angle of dilatancy (ψ), and the Young's modulus of elasticity (E). At the very beginning, the load-settlement response of unreinforced soil was evaluated followed by a comparative study between square and triangular arrangements of stone columns, at different spacings, under the raft, to arrive at the configuration that encounters minimal settlements and lateral deformations. Furthermore, circular discs of suitable geogrid material were introduced along the length of the stone column. The elastic behaviour of geogrids is governed by two properties: tensile modulus and yield strength. The load-settlement behavior and lateral deformations of the resulting reinforced stone columns, with OSCs were compared. Furthermore, the spacing between the circular discs of geogrids was kept at D/۲, D, ۲D, and ۳D, where D is the diameter of the stone column. According to the findings of an investigation conducted using FEM software, the performance of a granular pile group that is laid out in the shape of a triangle encounters much less lateral deformation and settlement than the square arrangement. The results also show that the performance of HRSCs was way better than those of OSCs, under the same in-situ soil conditions.

کلیدواژه ها:

HRSCs ، OSCs ، Raft Foundation ، FEM ، Stone columns