Finite element study of geosynthetic encased stone columns in sensitive soft clay
Some normally consolidated soft soils manifest strength sensitivity, ie these soil manifest strain softening when shear in an undrained mode. These soils, referred to as sensitive soft soils, have the typical features of strain hardening in drained shearing and strain softening in undrained shearing. The consolidation lines of these soils are also curved (concave upwards) in the semi-log space. However, under high consolidation stress or upon large shearing, these soils re-gain the features of re-constituted soil. Ground improvement methods like stone columns were reported as not effective when installed in the sensitive soft clays. But mechanism of the un-effectiveness of the stone columns remains unknown because of lack of a suitable and simple model for simulating the stress-strain behaviours of sensitive soft soils. Although these soils have a meta-stable micro-structure, models that developed for simulating structured firm soils are not suitable for simulating sensitive soft soil features. Thus, a new model was formulated. The new model can degenerate back to a Modified Cam Clay model. The ability of new model in simulating a range of behaviour was verified by using the finite difference (FD) method in solving the partial differential equations of the soil model for a range of tri-axial test conditions. The model was further implemented in coupled analysis formulation and coded into FEM program AFENA. Various cases with different soil parameters were then simulated and compared with the FD solutions for various triaxial tests so as to check the stability of the FEM code. The coupled FEA was then used to simulate the performance of geosynthetic-encased stone columns. A new stone column element and a geo-encasement element were developed and coded into AFENA. The stone column simulations were then done for both non-sensitive soils (represented by Modified Cam Clay model) and sensitive soft soil (represented by the new model). Parametric study was conducted to examine the performance of the geo-encased stone columns in both types of soils. Furthermore, two different installation methods: wished-in installation and full displacement installation were studied numerically. Cross comparison was done to investigate how the sensitive soft soil features interact with the installation method in affecting the performance of the geo-encased stone columns. A range of factors that influence the geosynthetic-encased stone columns performance installed in soft soils were also made clear.
Soil consolidation, Sensitive soft clays, Shear strength of soils, Soil mechanics, Geo-encased stone columns, Soil behaviour : simulation models, Finite difference (FD) method, Soil stress
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