The effect of granular material on behaviour of stone columns in soft clay under embankment

Abstract EN

The stone column material is one of the main controlling parameters in the design of stone columns.

It is shown to be affecting the stiffness of the stone columns and hence settlement of the treated soil.

Several materials with friction angles of stone column material used to reinforce weak soil as stone columns.

Finite element analyses were carried out to evaluate the settlement of soft clay reinforced with stone columns using 15-noded triangular elements in Plaxis 2D v8 software.

An analysis carried out using Mohr-Coulomb’s criterion model for stones columns and soft soil clay.

The numerical results from the FEM provide calculated settlement, excess pore water pressure and lateral bulging of the stone column.

It was found that friction angle 40o reduces the total settlement and lateral bulging to approximately 0.038m, 0.00086m respectively of that of reinforced clay with friction angle of crushed stone 27.5o