Experimental Investigation of Foundation on Collapsible Soils
Publication: Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering
Volume 143, Issue 11
Abstract
Geotechnical engineers face serious problems when building on collapsible soils. These types of soil show considerable strength when dry and experience excessive and sudden settlement when inundated. Due to the expansion of modern cities in arid areas, highways and roads may pass through pockets of collapsible soil. If unrecognized, it may cause pumps or deep sinkholes, which leads to traffic accidents and loss of lives. Furthermore, due to the increasing use of water for irrigation and domestic purposes, roads built on collapsible soils may experience uncalculated settlement. This paper presents the results of an experimental investigation of a rigid strip footing on collapsible soils subjected to inundation due to raising the groundwater table. A prototype experimental setup was designed to test these footings on homogeneous collapsible soils, partially replaced collapsible soils with cohesionless material with and without geotextile reinforcement layer at the interface. It is of interest to report that the case of footing on partially replaced collapsible soil with cohesionless material showed slight improvement, while a combination of partially replaced collapsible soil with geotextile layer at the interface showed a significant improvement in reducing the collapse settlement. Design procedure is presented to predict the collapse settlement for a given collapsible potential of the soil, loading conditions, replacement thickness, and strength of the geotextile material used.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Acknowledgments
The financial support from the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada and Concordia University are gratefully acknowledged. The data given in Fig. 1 and Tables 3–5 were provided by Texel Technical Materials Inc., which is acknowledged and appreciated.
References
Andrawes, K. Z., McGown, A., and Wilson-Fahmy, R. F. (1983). “The behavior of a geotextile reinforced sand loaded by a strip footing.” Proc., 8th European Conf. on Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, International Society of Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, London, 329–334.
ASTM. (2003). “Standard test method for measurement of collapse potential of soils.” ASTM D5333-03, West Conshohocken, PA.
ASTM. (2014). “Standard test method for deterioration of geotextiles by exposure to light, moisture and heat in a Xenon arc type apparatus.” ASTM D4355, West Conshohocken, PA.
ASTM. (2017). “Standard tests for tensile properties of geotextiles by the wide-width strip method.” ASTM D4595, West Conshohocken, PA.
Ayadat, T., and Hanna, A. M. (2005). “Encapsulated stone columns as a soil improvement technique for collapsible soil.” Ground Improv., 9(4), 137–147.
Ayadat, T., and Hanna, A. M. (2007). “Identification of collapsible soil using the fall cone apparatus.” Geotech. Test. J., 30(4), 312–323.
Badeev, S. Y., Soshin, M. V., Kuzin, B. N., and Isaev, B. N. (1987). “Experience in chemical stabilization of loess at the base of bored injection piles.” Soil Mech. Found. Eng., 24(2), 72–75.
Basma, A. A., and Tuncer, E. R. (1992). “Evaluation and control of collapsible soils.” J. Geotech. Eng., 1491–1504.
CAN (Canadian General Standards Board). (1985a). “Methods of testing geotextiles and geomembranes—Mass per unit area.” CAN148.1 No. 2, Quebec, Canada.
CAN (Canadian General Standards Board). (1985b). “Methods of testing geotextiles and geomembranes—Thickness of geotextiles.” CAN148.1 No. 3, Quebec, Canada.
CAN (Canadian General Standards Board). (1992). “Methods of testing geotextiles and geomembranes—Grab tensile test for geotextiles.” CAN148.1 No. 7.3, Quebec, Canada.
CAN (Canadian General Standards Board). (1994a). “Geotextiles—Filtration opening size.” CAN 148.1 No. 10, Quebec, Canada.
CAN (Canadian General Standards Board). (1994b). “Methods of testing geosynthetics—Geotextiles—Normal water permeability under no compressive load.” CAN148.1 No. 4, Quebec, Canada.
CAN (Canadian General Standards Board). (1994c). “Textile test methods—Bursting strength—Diaphram pressure test.” CAN 4.2 No. 11.1, Quebec, Canada.
Day, R. W. (2006). Foundation engineering handbook: Design and construction with the 2006 international building code, McGraw-Hill, New York.
Digitalfire.com. (2015). “Rogers kaolin.” ⟨https://digitalfire.com/4sight/material/rogers_kaolin_1201.html⟩ (Jul. 10, 2017).
French, S. E. (1999). Design of shallow foundations, ASCE, Reston, VA.
Haeri, S. M. (2016). “Hydro-mechanical behavior of collapsible soils in unsaturated soil mechanics context.” Jpn. Geotech. Soc. Spec. Publ., 2(1), 25–40.
Haeri, S. M., and Garakani, A. (2016). “Effect of soil structure and disturbance on hydromechanical behavior of collapsible loessial soils.” Int. J. Geomech., 04016021.
Houston, S. L., Houston, W. N., and Lawrence, C. A. (2002). “Collapsible soil engineering in highway infrastructure development.” J. Transp. Eng., 295–300.
Jefferson, I., Evstatiev, D., and Karastanev, D. (2008). “The treatment of collapsible loess soils using cement materials.” GeoCongress, 178, 662–669.
Jiang, M., Hu, H., and Liu, F. (2012). “Summary of collapsible behaviour of artificially structured loess in oedometer and triaxial wetting tests.” Can. Geotech. J., 49(10), 1147–1157.
Lee, K. M., Manjunath, V. R., and Dewaikar, D. M. (1999). “Numerical and model studies of strip footing supported by a reinforced granular fill-soft soil system.” Can. Geotech. J., 36(5), 793–806.
Li, P., Vanapalli, S., and Li, T. (2016). “Review of collapse triggering mechanism of collapsible soils due to wetting.” J. Rock Mech. Geotech. Eng., 8(2), 256–274.
Meyerhof, G. G., and Hanna, A. M. (1978). “Ultimate bearing capacity of foundations on layered soil under inclined load.” Can. Geotech. J., 15(4), 565–572.
Romani, F., and Hick, B. A. (1989). “Collapsible soils in the Antelope Valley–California.” Foundation engineering: Current principles and practices, ASCE, Evanston, IL, 135–142.
Santagata, M. C., El Howayek, A., Huang, P. T., and Bisnett, R. (2011). “Identification and behavior of collapsible soils.”, Indiana Dept. of Transportation and Purdue Univ., West Lafayette, IN.
Semkin, V. V., and Ermoshin, V. M. (1986). “Chemical stabilization of loess soils in Uzbekistan to prevent building deformations.” Soil Mech. Found. Eng., 23(5), 196–199.
Sokolovich, V. E., and Semkin, V. V. (1984). “Chemical stabilization of loess soils.” Soil Mech. Found. Eng., 21(4), 149–154.
Souza, A., Cintra, J. C. A., and Vilar, O. M. (1995). “Shallow foundations on collapsible soil improved by compaction.” Proc., 1st Int. Conf. on Unsaturated Soils, UNSAT’95, A.A. Balkema, Rotterdam, Netherlands, 1017–1021.
Tadepalli, R., and Fredlund, D. G. (1991). “The collapse behaviour of a compacted soil during inundation.” Can. Geotech. J., 28(4), 477–488.
Trivedi, A., and Sud, V. K. (2004). “Collapse behavior of coal ash.” J. Geotech. Geoenviron. Eng., 403–415.
Vakili, A. (2013). “Evaluation of the lime and cement effect on the mechanical and physical characteristics of the collapsible soils.” J. Basic Appl. Sci. Res., 3(8), 691–696.
VEE Pro [Computer software]. Keysight Technologies, Santa Rosa, CA.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Copyright
©2017 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Jun 13, 2016
Accepted: Mar 21, 2017
Published online: Sep 14, 2017
Published in print: Nov 1, 2017
Discussion open until: Feb 14, 2018
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Citations
Download citation
If you have the appropriate software installed, you can download article citation data to the citation manager of your choice. Simply select your manager software from the list below and click Download.