Settlement Behavior of Reinforced Embankments Supported by Encased Columns

Mehmet Rifat Kahyaoglu

Stone column supported embankments on soft clay deposits have some construction problems due to low bearing capacity, high compressibility and lack of lateral resistance. To overcome these difficulties, geosynthetics have been widely preferred by geotechnical engineers in recent years. This paper presents a two dimensional (2D) finite element model study, simulating a geosynthetic-reinforced (GR) and geosynthetic-encased stone column (GEC) supported embankment on soft soil. Numerical analyses are performed to investigate the effect of reinforcement and encasement on the vertical displacement of stone columns and soft soil. The results reveal a significant decrease in settlement with encasement, which is thought to be a direct consequence of the additional confining pressure produced by the geosynthetic encasement. With the help of base reinforcement, the surface settlement values of the soft soil reduced significantly.