Improvement of Soft Clay Using Stone Columns and Compaction Techniques

Abstract

Soft clays are widely spread in Bangladesh particularly in its rural area .As many sites within these regions may be used for vital projects; an adequate solution has been found out to improve such clays using stone column and compaction methods. For this purpose, the present project and thesis has represented the laboratory measurements of the properties of such clays and their load at same deflection. Six soils model tests have been tested to examine their behaviors under loading. The tested models include: model for untreated soil, model for soil treated with stone columns with 30 mm in diameter and 180 mm length and models for soil treated with compaction using drop weight 7.5 lb and 10 lb at 18 inch height. For weight drop of 7.5 lb and 10 lb load improvement ratio is greater compared with stone column model test. In comparison with untreated soil, the improvement load ratios were 57.33 % and 108% which soil models treated with 3 stone columns and compaction ( 10 lb drop weight ) respectively.