A stone column is one of the soil improvement methods that are mainly used for improving the geotechnical behavior of soft soils. For deep improvement of soft soil, the floating stone columns are considered the best and effective economically which provide lateral confinement and drainage and longitudinal skin friction. In this study, six tests were carried out on the natural soft soil of undrained shear strength of 5.5 kPa improved by single and two linear distributed floating stone columns. The stone column dimensions are 30 mm in diameter and 180 mm in length and the stone column material is sand of high internal friction angle of 48°. The natural and improved soil samples are tested under isolated raft foundation of dimensions 120×120 mm subjected to vertical static and cyclic loading of frequency 2Hz and continued for 50 seconds. The results showed a significant improvement in soil bearing capacity when reinforced with stone columns despite the small area replacement ratio, where the bearing capacity of improved soil increased by 120 to 145%. The compressibility of improved soil decreased by 57 to 86% in comparison with that of natural soft soil. Also, the floating stone columns reduced the porewater pressure, where the stone columns considered efficient in providing short drainage pathways. This can be one of the reasons why soil reinforced with floating stone columns hold higher cyclic and static stresses regardless the end bearing of stone columns.

No abstract

One of the common geotechnical problems is the construction on soft soil and the improvement of its geotechnical properties to meet the design requirements. A stone column is one of the well-known techniques used to improve the geotechnical properties of soft soils. Sometimes thick layers of soft soil imposed the designer to use floating stone columns for improvement of such soil; in this case, the designer will be lost the end bearing of the stone column. In this study, the effects of several patterns of floating stone columns distribution under footing on the bearing capacity of soil and the distribution of excess porewater pressure are investigated. The soft soil used in this study has a very low undrained shear strength (cu) of 5.5 kPa and improved by several patterns of stone columns (single, two linear, triangular, square, and quadrilateral). The stone column has a length of 180 mm and a diameter of 30 mm. The material of the stone column is poorly graded sand has an angle of internal friction (48.5°) at a relative density of 65%. The results indicated a significant increase in the ultimate bearing capacity of soft soil when treated with floating stone columns despite the small ratio of area replacement and reducing the excess porewater pressure and settlement. Also, the ultimate bearing capacity of soil calculated from experimental work is compared with the corresponding values obtained from the proposed equations in the previous studies to evaluate the validity of using such equations.