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Soils and Foundations 59 (2019) 1579–1590
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Technical Paper

Short-term and long-term behavior of geosynthetic-reinforced

stone columns
Ahad Ehsaniyamchi ⇑, Mahmoud Ghazavi
Civil Engineering Department, K.N. Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

Received 28 December 2018; received in revised form 10 May 2019; accepted 31 July 2019
Available online 14 September 2019

Abstract

Stone columns are often used to improve the load-carrying characteristics of weak soils. In very soft soils, however, the bearing capac-
ity of stone columns may not significantly improve the load-carrying characteristics due to the very low confinement of the surrounding
soil. In such cases, encased stone columns (ESCs) or horizontally reinforced stone columns (HRSCs) may be used. Although ESCs have
been studied extensively, few studies have been done on HRSCs. In addition, very limited studies are available on ESCs and HRSCs
under the same conditions. Moreover, no studies have been carried out to compare the long-term and short-term behavior of HRSCs
with that of ESCs. In this research, therefore, numerical analyses are performed on various types of reinforced end-bearing stone
columns to compare their behavior under both long-term and short-term conditions under various loading conditions. The Advanced
Modified Cam-clay model for clay and the Hardening Soil model for stone column materials are used. The results show that with proper
reinforcing stone columns, in addition to a considerable reduction in settlement, the consolidation time can be greatly decreased and
most of the settlement will occur during the loading period. Also, the consolidation settlement rate may be increased by using a smaller
column diameter and a larger area replacement ratio for the unit cell, stiffer geosynthetic reinforcements, and greater values for the
internal friction angle of the stone column materials.
Ó 2019 Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of The Japanese Geotechnical Society. This is an open access article under the CC BY-
NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Keywords: Geosynthetics; Reinforced stone columns; Numerical analysis; Short-term and long-term behavior; Consolidation settlement

1. Introduction and Ghazavi, 2014). In such situations, the load-

Stone columns are often used as a ground-improvement
method to improve the bearing capacity, to reduce the set-
tlement of saturated clayey soil, to increase the consolida-
tion rate of fine soils, and to decrease the liquefaction
potential. In very soft soils, however, the bearing capacity
of ordinary stone columns (OSCs) is small due to the very
low lateral confinement of the surrounding soil that leads
to bulging failure at a depth of D-2.5D (Nazariafshar
Peer review under responsibility of The Japanese Geotechnical Society.
⇑ Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: aehsani@mail.kntu.ac.ir (A. Ehsaniyamchi),
ghazavi_ma@kntu.ac.ir (M. Ghazavi).
settlement behavior of the stone columns can be improved
by geosynthetic reinforcements. Fig. 1 shows two main
reinforcing methods of stone columns. As seen in the fig-
ure, a stone column may be reinforced by an encasement,
called an encased stone column (ESC), wrapped with a
geosynthetic like a wick drain, or by placing horizontal
sheets of a geosynthetic within the column body at regular
intervals, called a horizontally reinforced stone column
(HRSC). The encasement may be wrapped around the
whole length of the stone column (Le = L), called a full-
length ESC, or just wrapped around the upper portion of
the stone column, for example, the half-length of the col-
umn (Le = 0.5L), where Le is the encased length of the
ESC.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sandf.2019.07.007
0038-0806/Ó 2019 Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of The Japanese Geotechnical Society.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
1580 A. Ehsaniyamchi, M. Ghazavi / Soils and Foundations 59 (2019) 1579–1590

Applied pressure

Le=0.5L
Sr
Soft soil
Stone column

Le=L

Geosynthetic encasement
Soft soil

Horizontal
reinforcing layers

(a) (b) (c) (d) (e)

Fig. 1. Examples of various models used in numerical analyses. Unit cell models of: (a) OSC, (b) full-length ESC, (c) half-length ESC, (d) HRSC with
Sr = 0.5D, and (e) single HRSC with Sr = 0.25D.

The encasing of stone columns has been studied using solidation of OSCs (Wang, 2009; Cimentada et al., 2011;
analytical solutions (Pulko et al., 2011; Zhang and Zhao, Ng and Tan, 2014; Lu et al., 2017; Deb and Behera,
2015), experiments (Gniel and Bouazza, 2009; Murugesan 2017), most of the studies on ESCs have been focused on
and Rajagopal, 2010; Ghazavi and Nazariafshar, 2013; either the short-term or the long-term behavior and only
Ali et al., 2012, 2014; Miranda and Da Costa, 2016; a few studies investigated the consolidation of ESCs
Hong et al., 2016), and numerical methods (Murugesan (Castro and Sagaseta, 2011; Zhang et al., 2012; Castro
and Rajagopal, 2006; Khabbazian et al., 2010; et al., 2013; Pulko and Logar, 2017). Castro and Sagaseta
Keykhosropur et al., 2012; Elsawy, 2013; Hosseinpour (2011) presented an advanced analytical method for pre-
et al., 2014; Yu et al., 2016). Most of the analytical and dicting the consolidation settlement of ESCs based on Bar-
numerical studies used the unit cell concept, assuming an ron’s solution. Pulko and Logar (2017) used Biot’s theory
infinitely wide loaded area with end-bearing stone columns and presented a fully coupled semi-analytical solution in
having a constant diameter and spacing, where the stone order to account for the consolidation settlement of ESCs.
column and the surrounding soil were treated as axisym- In addition, to the best knowledge of the authors, there
metric forms (Pulko et al., 2011). Murugesan and have been no studies that compared the long-term behavior
Rajagopal (2006) and Khabbazian et al. (2010) reported and the consolidation settlement of HRSCs with those of
that encasing the top portion of ESCs may be sufficient ESCs.
for preventing bulging failure and enhancing the bearing Although the behavior of the granular aggregates and
capacity. However, Gniel and Bouazza (2009) and geosynthetic reinforcements of stone columns is almost
Ghazavi and Nazariafshar (2013) reported that, in very independent of the loading speed, due to the presence of
soft soils, reinforcing the upper half part of ESCs may lead soft compressible clay around columns with very low per-
to the relocation of the bulging failure to the lower un- meability, after applying the initial loading on the stone
encased parts of the columns; and thus, it may be more use- columns and the surrounding soil, horizontal and vertical
ful to encase the full length of the ESCs. consolidation deformation is generated in the soil around
HRSCs have been studied by Sharma et al. (2004), Wu the stone columns. This will cause additional deformation
and Hong (2008), Ali et al. (2012, 2014), Nazariafshar and and the regeneration of stress in both the stone columns
Ghazavi (2014), Hosseinpour et al. (2014) and Ghazavi and the reinforcements. Therefore, the effects of consolida-
et al. (2018). Their results showed that the beneficial effect tion on the soft clay surrounding the columns should be
of HRSCs mainly depends on the vertical spacing between taken into account when calculating the stress and defor-
the horizontal reinforcing sheets and that the bearing mation of the various elements of the stone columns. This
capacity of HRSCs increases with a decrease in the spacing paper performs numerical analyses to compare both the
between the reinforcing layers (Ghazavi et al., 2018). long-term and short-term behavior and the consolidation
Although various studies have been conducted on ESCs settlements of end-bearing ESCs and HRSCs. To this
and HRSCs, only a very limited number of studies have aim, advanced constitutive models are used to compare
compared the two methods under the same conditions the long-term and short-term behavior of ESCs and
(Ali et al., 2012, 2014; Hosseinpour et al., 2014). Moreover, HRSCs. The present results may assist practicing engineers
although several studies have been conducted on the con- in choosing the best reinforcement method for stone
 A. Ehsaniyamchi, M. Ghazavi / Soils and Foundations 59 (2019) 1579–1590 1581

columns with respect to the site, the loading conditions, the linear-elastic behavior was used for reinforcing the material
available materials, and the soil-improvement target. simulation. To allow the mobilization between the rein-
forcement and the soil materials, interface elements were
used by applying a strength reduction factor of 0.67, as
2. Finite element analyses suggested by the PLAXIS manual and used by
Khabbazian et al. (2010).
2.1. Model description and boundary conditions
2.2. Numerical analysis validation
Finite element analyses were performed using PLAXIS
2D in an axisymmetric condition. In the numerical analy- The finite element model was verified for both reinforc-
ses, two configurations of full-length ESCs and half- ing methods using data reported by others in the literature
length ESCs were adopted, and their characteristics were (Figs. 2 and 3). The predicted ESC data were verified by the
compared with HRSCs with Sr = 0.25D and Sr = 0.5D, data reported by Khabbazian et al. (2010) for an OSC and
where Sr is the spacing of the horizontal reinforcing strips a full-length ESC, both with a diameter of 80 cm and a
(Fig. 1d) and D denotes the stone column diameter. The length of 5 m. The predicted HRSC data were verified by
reinforcing material used for the two cases of full-length the experimental data reported by Ghazavi et al. (2018)
ESC and HRSC with Sr = 0.25D was the same and equal for an OSC and an HRSC, both with a diameter of
to p.D.L, where L is the column length. In the same way, 10 cm and a length of 50 cm. As seen in Fig. 3, there is a
the area of the reinforcing material used for the two cases good agreement between the test data and the simulations.
of half-length ESC and HRSC with Sr = 0.5D was equal Therefore, the adopted numerical analysis methods can be
to p.D.L/2. This facilitated a comparison between ESCs used to further discover the behavior of HRSCs and ESCs.
and HRSCs in terms of the consumption of the reinforcing
material. Two types of stone column configurations for a
single column and the unit cell concept, representing the
stone column group, were studied by means of various
numerical parametric analyses (Fig. 1). The length of all
the stone columns was assumed to be 5 m. All the stone
columns were located on a rigid stratum.
Fig. 1 also shows some examples of the geometric mod-
els adopted for various types of stone columns with various
loading conditions. Fig. 1a to 1d show the configurations
of the unit cell conditions for the interior column condi-
tions in the group of stone columns supporting a rigid
spread footing. Fig. 1e shows a single HRSC supporting
a rigid footing. In all the numerical analyses, the initial
in-situ stress levels were predicted by considering a value
of 0.5 for the at-rest pressure coefficient. Then, the analyses
were carried out by removing the hole, replacing the col-
umn materials, and applying vertical pressure on the top Fig. 2. Validation of numerical analysis for ESCs.
of the rigid footing or adopting a prescribed displacement
on the top of the model to simulate the rigid footing con-
dition on the top of the stone column and the tributary Vertical stress (kPa)
area. To remove the effects of the element size, a fine mesh 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900
discretization was considered for all the models. As seen in 0

Fig. 1, the boundary conditions in modeling single stone

column loading were sufficiently extended. However, the 10
boundary conditions of the unit cell models were adopted
Settlement (mm)

PLAXIS, OSC, D=100 mm

according to three assumed area replacement ratios, 20
namely, 0.15, 0.25, and 0.35, which are the ratios normally
PLAXIS, HRSC, D=100 mm,
used in practice. 30 S =D
The soft soil and stone column materials were modeled Experiment by Ghazavi et al.
using 15-noded triangular elements, and the geosynthetic 40 (2018), OSC, D=100 mm
reinforcements were simulated using 5-noded geogrid- Experiment by Ghazavi et al.
type elements. The Modified Cam-Clay (MCC) model (2018), HRSC, D=100 mm, S =D
50
and the Hardening Soil (HS) model were used for the clay
and stone column materials, respectively. Moreover, a Fig. 3. Validation of numerical analysis for HRSCs.
1582 A. Ehsaniyamchi, M. Ghazavi / Soils and Foundations 59 (2019) 1579–1590

3. Numerical results Two different series of numerical analyses were per-

formed to study the short-term bearing capacity and the
In the literature, most of the tests performed on ordi- long-term consolidation settlement of various types of sin-
nary or reinforced stone columns were under quick gle stone columns. The first series of analyses consisted of a
undrained loading conditions for soft clay materials. How- short-term two-day coupled loading, performed by apply-
ever, the presence of a stone column causes the rapid dissi- ing a prescribed settlement of 20 cm. However, the second
pation of the excess pore pressure that is generated due to series of analyses included a short-term two-day coupled
the undrained loading conditions. As a result, the insuffi- loading performed by applying vertical stress that caused
cient column-bearing capacity and the changes in settle- a 20-cm settlement at the end of the two-day loading period
ment are due to the consolidation of the surrounding determined from the first series of analyses that was fol-
clay. In this research, the Advanced Modified Cam-Clay lowed by a 100-day consolidation period. In all the analy-
and Hardening Soil constitutive models for clay and stone ses, constant values of 80 cm and 500 cm were considered
column materials, respectively, were used in the numerical for the diameter and the length of the stone columns,
analyses to study the long-term and short-term behavior of respectively. However, three different ratios of footing
both HRSCs and ESCs. Also, to consider the free drainage diameter (D0 ) to stone column diameter (D), namely, D0 /
effects of the stone column materials, a fully coupled flow- D = 1, 2, and 3, were adopted for the single stone columns.
deformation analysis was used to simulate quick loading To determine the efficiency of the geosynthetic reinforce-
conditions and free drainage was assumed for the geosyn- ment on the load-bearing capacity of the stone columns,
thetic reinforcements. The clay parameters in the numerical the bearing improvement factor (B.I.F.) is defined as the
analyses were the same as those used by Khabbazian et al. ratio of the bearing capacity of a reinforced stone column
(2010) for Bangkok clay. For the stone column material, to the bearing capacity of an ordinary stone column with
typical values were used (Table 1). For the various types the same conditions at the same settlement values. In addi-
of reinforced stone columns in the unit cell, various series tion, to evaluate the settlement improvement of the rein-
of numerical analyses were conducted, details of which forcements, the settlement improvement factor (S.I.F.) is
are given Table 2. To assess the effect of each parameter, defined as the ratio of the settlement caused by an ordinary
all other parameters were kept constant according to the stone column to the settlement caused by a reinforced stone
underlined values given in Table 2. column with the same conditions. The definition of both
parameters, B.I.F. and S.I.F., are illustrated in Fig. 4.
Moreover, as shown in Fig. 4b, parameter SEOL is defined
Table 1 as the settlement value of a stone column at the end of the
Material parameters for numerical models. loading stage, while parameter SF is defined as the final set-
Property name Soft soil Stone column tlement value of a stone column at end of the consolidation
Behavior undrained drained process.
Model MCC HS
csat (kN/m3) 20 20 3.1. Unit cell modeling
/ (deg) – 40
c (kPa) – 1
3.1.1. Influence of loading rate and consolidation time
w (deg) – 0
Eref
50 (MPa) – 150 To study the behavior of various types of reinforced
Eref
oed (MPa) – 150 stone columns at various loading rates, 15 coupled numer-
Eref
ur (MPa) – 450 ical analyses were carried out using three loading dura-
M 1.00 0.5 tions, namely, 2, 20, and 100 days, for applying 200 kPa
Ν 0.2 0.2
of vertical stress on the top of the unit cell. These durations
Κ 0.09 –
K 0.5 – were selected to simulate rapid, medium, and slow loading
eint 2 – rates, respectively. All analyses were followed by a consol-
kx (m/day) 0.0003 3 idation analysis until 200 days had passed from the start of
Ky (m/day) 0.0001 1 the loading period, in order to assess and compare the
long-term behavior of all the stone column types.
Table 2
Various numerical parametric analyses for unit cell concept of stone column.
Series of parametric Parameter details
analyses
1 Loading duration and consolidation time = 2 days of loading + 198 days of consolidation, 20 days of loading + 180 days of
consolidation, 100 days of loading + 100 days of consolidation
2 Column diameter = 50, 80, and 110 cm
3 Area replacement ratio = 0.15, 0.25, and 0.35
4 Reinforcement stiffness = 1000, 3000, and 5000 kN/m
5 Internal friction angle of stone column materials = 35, 40, and 45°
 A. Ehsaniyamchi, M. Ghazavi / Soils and Foundations 59 (2019) 1579–1590
Fig. 4. Definition of reinforcement improvement parameters: (a) B.I.F.
and (b) S.I.F.
Fig. 5. Time-settlement behavior of various stone columns with different loading rates.
1583
Fig. 5 shows the variation in the time-settlement behav-
ior at the top of the unit cell in the OSC and various types
of reinforced stone columns, while Fig. 6 compares the
final settlement (sF) and the S.I.F. values at the end of
200 days. As seen in Figs. 5 and 6, all types of reinforce-
ments were able to reduce the settlement of the OSC. The
HRSC with Sr = 0.25D and the full-length ESC show the
best reinforcement performances, providing high confining
effects on the stone column materials. However, the half-
length ESC and the HRSC with Sr = 0.5D show smaller
improvement effects with low confining effects on the stone
column material. Also, as seen in Fig. 6, the final long-term
settlement of the OSC or the reinforced stone columns is
independent of the column loading rate. In fact, the
amount of final settlement of the loaded stone columns is
seen to depend on the soil and the stone column material
properties, the reinforcement stiffness, and the geometric
conditions, and it is independent of the loading rate.
Fig. 7 shows the excess pore water pressure levels at the
end of the 2-day loading duration. As seen in the figure, by
reinforcing the columns, the excess pore pressure decreases
and the greatest decreases in excess pore pressure occur for
the full-length ESC and the HRSC with Sr = 0.25D. There-
fore, due to the small excess pore pressure generation with
these types of reinforcements, minimum consolidation set-
tlement is expected. Fig. 8 shows the variation in the ratio
of the settlement at the end of the loading time (sEOL) to
the final settlement at the end of consolidation (sF). As seen
from Figs. 6 and 8, the loading rate has a very minimal
effect on the final long-term settlements for all types of
stone columns. However, the ratio of sEOL/sF varies greatly
1584 A. Ehsaniyamchi, M. Ghazavi / Soils and Foundations 59 (2019) 1579–1590
Fig. 6. Variation in (a) final settlement (sF) and (b) S.I.F. values at end consolidation vs loading duration.
Fig. 7. Excess pore pressure generated in various stone columns at end of
2-day loading duration: (a) OSC, (b) full-length ESC, (c) half-length ESC,
(d) HRSC with Sr = 0.25D, and (e) HRSC with Sr = 0. 5D.
Fig. 8. Variation in (sEOL/sF) vs loading duration for various stone
columns.
for the various types of stone columns and the various
loading rates. For example, for the 2-day loading rate,
the value of sEOL/sF for both the full-length ESC and the
HRSC with Sr = 0.25D is about 0.66. This indicates that
these reinforcing types can reduce the consolidation settle-
ment to the minimum value, even with very rapid loading.
It is also seen that, by using the moderate time of 20 days
of loading, the value of sEOL/sF for both the full-length
ESC and the HRSC with Sr = 0.25D is more than 0.93.
This means that most of consolidation settlement occurs
within the first 20 days for these stone columns. However,
the consolidation settlement rates for the half-length ESC
and the HRSC with Sr = 0.5D are remarkably lower than
those in the above cases, especially at rapid loading rates.
3.1.2. Influence of stone column diameter
Fig. 9 shows the time-settlement behavior of various
diameters of 50, 80, and 110 cm for stone columns loaded
up to 200 kPa of vertical stress in 2 days, followed by
198 days of consolidation time. As seen in the figure, with
an increase in the diameter of all types of stone columns in
the unit cell with a constant area replacement ratio, the
consolidation settlement rate decreases and more time is
required to reach the final settlement for larger diameters.
The difference in the consolidation time for various diame-
ters of the full-length ESC and the HRSC with Sr = 0.25D
is very small, ranging from 2 days for D = 50 cm to 10 days
for D = 110 cm. However, the consolidation time for the
half-length ESC increases from 4 days for D = 50 cm to
20 days for D = 110 cm. Moreover, for the OSC and the
HRSC with Sr = 0.5D, the consolidation time has the lar-
gest increase from about 15 days for D = 50 cm to about
60 days for D = 110 cm. In fact, the load-bearing behavior
of the full-length ESC and the HRSC with Sr = 0.25D has
minimum dependency on the surrounding clay behavior,
and a minimum amount of excess pore pressure is gener-
ated for these types of reinforced stone columns. As a
result, they experience minimum consolidation settlements.
Fig. 10 shows the variation in the S.I.F. versus the diam-
eter of the stone columns for various reinforcement types.
 A. Ehsaniyamchi, M. Ghazavi / Soils and Foundations 59 (2019) 1579–1590 1585

Fig. 9. Time-settlement behavior of various stone columns with different column diameters: (a) D = 50 cm, (b) D = 80 cm, and (c) D = 110 cm.

the benefit of the encasement decreases with an increase

in the diameter of these columns.
It should be noted that, with an increase in the stone col-
umn diameter from 50 to 80 and 110 cm, the area ratio of
the reinforcing material to the volume for the unit cell
decreases from 2 to 1.25 and 0.91, respectively. In other
words, with an increase in the diameter of the full-length
ESC and the HRSC with Sr = 0.25D from 50 to 110 cm,
the use of reinforcement material brings about a two-fold
decrease. However, the S.I.F. decreases just about 19%
for the HRSC with Sr = 0.25D. Therefore, from the view-
point of the amount of consumption of the reinforcing
material, the best reinforcement type is the HRSC with
Sr = 0.25D for larger stone column diameters.

Fig. 10. Variation in S.I.F. with column diameter for various stone
columns.
As shown in the figure, for all reinforcement types, the S.I.
F. value decreases with an increase in the stone column
diameter. However, the rate of decrease is much larger
for the full-length ESC than for the HRSCs. Murugesan
and Rajagopal (2010) and Castro and Sagaseta (2011)
reported the same results for ESCs and concluded that
3.1.3. Influence of area reinforcement ratio
Fig. 11 shows the time-settlement behavior of stone col-
umns with various area replacement ratios. As seen in the
figure, the rate of consolidation increases with an increase
in the area replacement ratio for all types of stone columns.
This is due to a reduction in the drainage path length and
to bearing a larger part of the applied load by the stiffer
stone column. In addition, the time it takes to reach the
final settlement for the full-length ESC and the HRSC with

Fig. 11. Time-settlement behavior of stone columns with different area replacement ratios: (a) 0.15, (b) 0.25, and (c) 0.35.
1586 A. Ehsaniyamchi, M. Ghazavi / Soils and Foundations 59 (2019) 1579–1590
Fig. 12. Variation in S.I.F. with area replacement ratio for various stone
columns.
Sr = 0.25D is minimum. This is because their behavior has
only minimum dependency on the surrounding clay.
Fig. 12 shows the variation in the S.I.F. with the area
replacement ratio for various reinforced stone columns.
As seen in the figure, the S.I.F. increases with an increase
in the area replacement ratio for all cases. However, the
rate of increase in the S.I.F. decreases for larger area
replacement ratios.
3.1.4. Influence of reinforcement stiffness
Fig. 13 shows the time-settlement behavior of various
stone columns with reinforcement stiffness. As seen in the
figure, for the full-length ESC and the HRSC with
Sr = 0.25D, the total consolidation time decreases from
about 10 days for J = 1000 kN/m to about 3 days for
J = 5000 kN/m. However, the variation in reinforcement
stiffness has no sensitive effect on the total consolidation
time in the half-length ESC and or the HRSC with
Sr = 0.5D. Fig. 14 shows the variation in the S.I.F. with
reinforcement stiffness for various types of stone columns.
As seen in the figure, the S.I.F. values increase with an
increase in the reinforcement stiffness for all reinforcement
types. However, the increases in the S.I.F. for the
Fig. 13. Time-settlement behavior of various stone columns with reinforcement stiffness: (a) J = 1000 kN/m, (b) J = 3000 kN/m, and (c) J = 5000 kN/m.
Fig. 14. Variation in S.I.F. with reinforcement stiffness for various stone
columns.
full-length ESC and the HRSC with Sr = 0.25D are much
larger than those for the half-length ESC and the HRSC
with Sr = 0.5D. In fact, the loading behavior of the full-
length ESC and the HRSC with Sr = 0.25D has a strong
dependency on the reinforcement material stiffness and
has much less dependency on the properties of the
surrounding clay. However, the loading behavior of the
half-length ESC and the HRSC with Sr = 0.5D not only
depends on the reinforcement material stiffness, but also
on the properties of the surrounding clay. Moreover, for
the half-length ESC and the HRSCs, the rates of increase
in the S.I.F. decrease with an increase in the reinforcement
stiffness. This is because, with these reinforcement types, a
moderate level of reinforcement stiffness of about 3000 kN/
m can produce a sufficient level of confinement effect on the
column material in the reinforced parts of these columns
and, by increasing the reinforcement stiffness from 3000
kN/m to 5000 kN/m, the main effective parameter on the
behavior of stone columns is the bulging of the column
materials at the unreinforced parts located between the
horizontal layers of the HRSCs or at the lower unrein-
forced part of the half-length ESC. Therefore, the use of
high stiffness for the reinforcements cannot bring about
 A. Ehsaniyamchi, M. Ghazavi / Soils and Foundations 59 (2019) 1579–1590 1587

greater improvement for either the half-length ESCs or the

HRSC with Sr = 0.5D. However, in the cases of the full-
length ESCs and the HRSC with Sr = 0.25D, due to the full
confinement of all parts of the columns, the horizontal dis-
placements of the columns of all lengths were limited and
the behavior of the stone columns was seen to mainly
depend on the reinforcement stiffness. Therefore, with an
increase in the stiffness of the reinforcements, even for high
stiffness values, the S.I.F. value will increase.

3.1.5. Influence of internal friction angle (/) of stone column

materials
Fig. 15 shows the time-settlement behavior of various
stone columns with three values of 35, 40, and 45° for
the internal friction angle of the stone column material. Fig. 16. Variation in S.I.F. with internal friction angle of column material
As seen in the figure, with an increasing /, the consolida- for various stone columns.
tion settlement rate increases slightly for all types of stone
columns. In fact, by using a stronger material for the stone
columns, a greater part of the load is tolerated by the col- Vertical stress (kPa)
0 50 100 150 200
umn material, leading to a lower generation of excess pore 0
pressure in the surrounding clay, and thus, the occurrence OSC
of lower consolidation settlement. HRSC, S =0.5D
40
Settlement (mm)
Fig. 16 shows the variation in the S.I.F. with the internal Half-length ESC
friction angle of the column material for various types of
80 Full-length ESC
reinforced stone columns. As seen in the figure, the S.I.F.
HRSC, S =0.25D
value for all the stone columns increases with an increase
in the internal friction. However, the rate of increase for 120
the HRSCs is greater than that for the ESCs. This is due
to the interlocking effect between the horizontal reinforce- 160
ment layers and the column materials. In practice, this may
help in choosing the type of reinforcement. Thus, HRSCs 200
may be used when stronger column materials are available.
Also, ESCs are preferable when poor materials are present Fig. 17. Variation in vertical stress-settlement behavior of various types of
single stone columns.
in the stone columns.

3.2. Single stone column loading
3.2.1. Short-term bearing capacity of single stone columns
To study the short-term bearing capacity of single rein-
forced stone columns and to predict the B.I.F. of various
types of reinforcements, some coupled flow-deformation
analyses were performed by applying a prescribed settle-
ment of 20 cm for the duration of one day. In these analy-
ses, three ratios, namely, D0 /D = 1, 2, and 3, and
D = 80 cm, were considered for all cases. Figs. 17 and 18
show the variations in the vertical stress-settlement
behavior and the excess pore pressure generated under

Fig. 15. Time-settlement behavior of various stone columns with internal friction angle for stone column material: (a) 35°, (b) 40°, and (c) 45°.
1588 A. Ehsaniyamchi, M. Ghazavi / Soils and Foundations 59 (2019) 1579–1590

Fig. 18. Excess pore pressure under footing area for case of D0 /D = 2, due to 20-cm settlement of footing for various stone columns: (a) OSC, (b) HRSC
with Sr = 0.5D, (c) half-length ESC, (d) full-length ESC, and (e) HRSC with Sr = 0.25D.

the footing area, respectively, of various types of stone col-
umns for D0 /D = 2. Table 3 presents the bearing capacity
and the B.I.F. values at the end of 1 day of loading for var-
ious cases. As seen in Fig. 17 and Table 3, for all the D0 /D
values, the HRSC with Sr = 0.25D and the full-length ESC
have the best B.I.F., while the HRSC with Sr = 0.5D has
the lowest B.I.F. value. In addition, the half-length ESC
has a moderate effect on the B.I.F. In fact, as shown in
Fig. 18, using a full encasement along the column or hori-
zontal reinforcing layers with a low interval spacing pro-
vides a full confining effect on the stone column material.
As a result, most of the applied load on the footing is tol-
erated by the stone column and a minimum amount of ver-
tical stress is transferred to the surrounding clay. Thus, low
excess pore pressure is generated in the soft soil. However,
for the cases of the half-length ESC and the HRSC with
Sr = 0.5D, no sufficient confinement is provided for the
stone column materials. As a result, greater vertical stress
is transferred to the surrounding clay; and thus, greater
excess pore pressure is generated. This leads to an increase
in the long-term consolidation settlement in such types of
reinforced stone columns compared with the other cases.
dissipate the excess pore pressure in the clay medium and
to reach a steady state condition of the settlements.
1. The results of the time-settlement analysis for D0 /D = 2
are shown in Fig. 19. As seen in the figure, a maximum
settlement of 4 cm occurs during consolidation for the
HRSC with Sr = 0.5D. This is approximately equal to
the consolidation settlement of an OSC. However, for
the full-length ESC and the HRSC with Sr = 0.25D,
the minimum consolidation settlements of 0.4 cm and
1.2 cm, respectively, occur. Therefore, by using full-
length ESCs or HRSCs with Sr = 0.25D, the long-term
settlement of single stone columns can be significantly
reduced, in addition to there being an improvement in
the short-term load-bearing behavior.

3.2.2. Long-term consolidation settlement of single stone

columns
To investigate the long-term behavior, various types of
single reinforced stone columns were initially modeled
using a rigid plate on the top of the stone columns with var-
ious D0 /D and applying the amount of vertical stress that
would lead to the same 20-cm settlement for all cases,
according to bearing capacity values mentioned in Table 3. Fig. 19. Time-settlement variations for various types of single-stone
The vertical stress is applied for 1 day with a coupled anal- columns during short-term, 1-day of loading, and long-term consolidation
ysis and, after that, a consolidation analysis is conducted to time to 200 days.

Table 3
Bearing capacity and B.I.F. values at end of two days of loading for various single stone columns.
D0 /D (D = 80 cm) OSC HRSC, Sr = 0.5D Half-length ESC Full-length ESC HRSC, Sr = 0.25D
Bearing capacity (kPa) B.I.F. B.I.F. B.I.F. B.I.F.
1 63.5 2.87 6.53 10.74 9.88
2 25.9 2.97 4.14 6.8 7.07
3 19.9 2.4 2.71 4.34 4.55
 A. Ehsaniyamchi, M. Ghazavi / Soils and Foundations 59 (2019) 1579–1590
4. Conclusions
In this paper, various short-term coupled flow-
deformation analyses and long-term consolidation analyses
have been performed to investigate the behavior of various
types of reinforced stone columns. Based on the numerical
analyses, the following concluding remarks can be made:
2. All types of reinforcements can improve the short-term
load-settlement behavior of OSCs and reduce their
long-term consolidation settlement in both the unit cell
configuration and the single stone column configuration.
3. The final long-term settlement of OSCs or reinforced
stone columns is approximately independent of the col-
umn loading rate. This means that for all types of stone
columns under a constant vertical load, the final long-
term settlement will be equal for quick, medium, or slow
loading rates.
4. By considering the results of the parametric analyses
under both short-term and long-term conditions, the
HRSC with Sr = 0.25D is the most efficient type of rein-
forcement for stone columns with the greatest B.I.F. and
S.I.F. The full-length ESC is the second most efficient
type, with a minimum difference between them.
5. With proper reinforcements, such as full-length ESCs or
HRSCs with Sr = 0.25D, in addition to a considerable
reduction in the settlement of the OSCs, the consolida-
tion time can be greatly decreased and most of the settle-
ment will occur during the loading time.
6. From the viewpoint of the amount of consumption of
the reinforcing material, the best reinforcement type
for stone columns is the HRSC with Sr = 0.25D.
7. For the unit cell concept, the long-term consolidation
settlement rate of stone columns may be increased by
using stone columns with smaller diameters and a larger
area replacement ratio for the unit cell, stiffer geosyn-
thetics for the reinforcements, and a greater internal fric-
tion angle for the stone column material.
8. Due to the interlocking effects between the reinforce-
ment and the stone materials, the bearing capacity of
HRSCs is more dependent on the internal friction angle
of the stone column material than ESCs. This means
that HRSCs are more effective when using stone materi-
als with higher internal friction angles. However, when
only poor materials are available, the use of full-length
ESCs is preferable.
9. The bearing capacity of full-length ESCs and HRSCs
with Sr = 0.25D is more dependent on the stiffness of
the reinforcement material than the half-length ESCs
and HRSCs with Sr = 0.5D.
10.By using the proper type of reinforcement, such as full-
length ESCs or HRSCs with Sr = 0.25D, the long-term
settlement behavior of single stone columns will be
decreased significantly, in addition to there being an
improvement in the short-term load-bearing behavior.
1589
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