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Behavior of Floating Stone Columns and Development of Porewater Pressure Under Cyclic Loading

Transportation Infrastructure Geotechnology volume 9, pages 236–249 (2022)Cite this article

Abstract

The floating stone column is a common and efficient technique that provides confinement to the soft soil and increases its strength and provides short drainage paths for the excess porewater pressure. The present study investigates the effects of several patterns of floating stone columns constructed in soft clay under footing subjected to cyclic loading. The soft soil used in this study has a very low unconfined compressive strength and it was improved by single, two, three, and four in a square and four in a quadrilateral pattern of stone columns. The backfill material of columns is poorly graded sand having a relative density of 65%. The results of physical model tests indicated increasing soil bearing capacity and reduced the excess porewater pressure and settlement. The degree of improvement of geotechnical properties of soft soil increases with increasing the area replacement ratio of stone columns. Generally, the soil samples exhibited two patterns of porewater pressure (PWP) variation with increasing the number of loading cycles. The soil samples reinforced with one and two stone columns showed a linear increase in the PWP with increasing the number of loading cycles, but the soil samples reinforced with three and four columns showed nonlinear decreasing of PWP with a growing number of loading cycles. The four columns in a quadrilateral pattern is better than in a square pattern in improving the geotechnical properties of soft soil subjected to cyclic loading.

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Acknowledgements

The authors expressed their thanks and appreciation to the staff of the Civil Engineering Department at the University of Baghdad for their help and support during conducting the necessary laboratory tests.

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  1. Civil Engineering Department, University of Baghdad, Al-Jadriah, Baghdad, Iraq

    Mahdi Karkush & Anwar Jabbar

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  1. Mahdi Karkush
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  2. Anwar Jabbar
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Correspondence to Mahdi Karkush.

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Karkush, M., Jabbar, A. Behavior of Floating Stone Columns and Development of Porewater Pressure Under Cyclic Loading. Transp. Infrastruct. Geotech. 9, 236–249 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40515-021-00171-w

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40515-021-00171-w

Keywords

  • Bearing capacity
  • Cyclic loading
  • Floating stone columns
  • Porewater pressure
  • Soft soil