Enchanching the soft soil by installation of vertical stone

column fileed with crushed concrete debris

Stone columns are generally used to improve the bearing
capacity of clay deposit in coastal areas. When the clay is very
soft, consumption of stone is very high to develop the required
axial capacity. Encasement of stone column provides the
necessary lateral restraint and enhances the bearing capacity. In
order to understand the Behavior of encapsulated stone columns,
Triaxial testing of encased stone columns was carried out.
Geotextiles was used to encase the crushed concrete debris.
Triaxial tests were carried out on 50mm and 75mm diameter
columns at three confining pressures. These tests were analyzed
numerically by axisymmetric modeling using PLAXIS software.
Stone Column Applications
1. Increased Bearing Capacity
2. Reduction of Total and Differential Settlement
3. Expedites Consolidation Settlement
4. Liquefaction Mitigation
The degree of improvement of a soft soil by stone columns is due
to two factors. The first one is inclusion of a stiffer column
material (such as crushed stones, gravel in the soft soil. The
second factor is the densification of the surrounding soft soil
during the installation of the Vibrocompacted stone column itself
and the subsequent consolidation process occurring in the soft
soil before the final loading of improved soil. The installation of
vibrocompacted stone columns leads to an improvement of the in
situ soft soil characteristics and, consequently, enhances the load
displacement response of the reinforced soil.
Plate load tests were conducted on a model footing resting on
clay reinforced with stone columns on a square tank. Tests were
performed after reinforcing the soil by introducing the stone
columns of 0.4B and 0.57B diameter (where B is size of footing)
filled by CCD and natural aggregate at different locations. As
number of vertical column increased the stiffness of ground
increase which increases in ultimate bearing capacity of column.

The bearing capacity increased from 320(N C=0) to 1200 kN/m2

(NC=13 L/B=3) for CCD at DC/B=0.57and in case of NA it is
improved up to 1350 kN/m2 for NC=13 (L/B=3) at DC/B=0.57. this
may be due to the fact that stiffer response is shown by soil bed
as number of stone column increase.