One of the Iraqi geotechnical problems is the presence of gypseous soils covering about (27-36) percentage of Iraq soils containing gypsum between (10-70) ratios. The main reason for soil problematic is the gypsum dissolution when these soils are inundated. However, the soluble gypsum can be leached out of the soil particles, so these problems can be led to cracking, tilting, and collapsing the related soil structure and changing the soil properties. The aim of this work is to investigate the performance of under-reamed piles as a new, improved method to reduce the moisture sensitive and the primary triggering mechanism for the volume reduction of collapsible soil, which is considered as a non-elastic deformation; this was done by carrying series of inundation these soil with using different types of under reamed piles to arrive the best and suitable type useful in gypseous soils. The piles with reams are concrete piles with one or more ream, so under-reamed piles are suitable in weak soils where sizable ground movement, variations, filed up ground, silty clay, and loose sand which has the advantage to increase the soil strength. This paper includes the experimental model of under-reamed piles under static load simulated by a steel plate on the pile cap, then the load-settlement curve, friction force, and bearing force founded from the investigation of different patterns of reamed. It was found that a number of bulbs had a significant reduction on settlement reach to 93% in case of using triple under-reamed pile which is the greatest results in comparison with other patterns and reference pile of the uniform cross-section in the wet state.

The response of floating stone columns of different lengths to diameter ratio (L/D = 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10) ratios exposed to earthquake excitations is well modeled in this paper. Such stone column behavior is essential in the case of lateral displacement under an earthquake through the soft clay soil. ABAQUS software was used to simulate the behavior of stone columns in soft clayey soil using an axisymmetric finite element model. The behavior of stone column material has been modeled with a Drucker-Prager model. The soft soil material was modeled by the Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion assuming an elastic-perfectly plastic behavior. The floating stone columns were subjected to the El Centro earthquake, which had a magnitude of 7.1 and a peak ground acceleration of 3.50 m/s2. The surface displacement, velocity, and acceleration in soft clayey enhanced by floating stone columns are also smaller than in natural soft clay. The findings of this research revealed that under the influence of earthquake waves, lateral displacement varies with stone columns of various lengths.

This study focuses on investigating the impacts of kerosene on the physical, mechanical, and chemical characteristics of clay soil. The soils specimens are contaminated artificially with six ratios of kerosene (5, 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50) % calculated according to the dry weight of soil. The artificial contamination includes air drying of the disturbed soil, then placed in plastic containers and mixed with the field water content and the specified concentration of kerosene to ensure getting homogenous contaminated soil specimens. The contaminated soil specimens left for 30 days in plastic containers covered by nylon sheets to control the water content and prevent volatility of contaminant. The results of tests proved that different ratios of kerosene have different impacts on the engineering and chemical characteristics of soil specimens. The specific gravity, percentages of fine particles, optimum water content, the initial and final void ratio, coefficient of consolidation, swelling index, permeability, the undrained shear strength, effective shear strength parameters, and the rate of reduction of initial pore water pressure are reduced significantly with increasing the content of kerosene in soil. Generally, the concentration of kerosene less than 10% has slight impacts on the studied characteristics of soil specimens.