Analysis of the Long-Term Settlements of Chimney Foundation on Silty Clay

Abstract

As an integral part of foundation design, long-term settlement monitoring is necessary for reasonable estimates of the long-term settlement of chimney foundation bearing on silty clay, particularly of organic soils, for which long-term settlement is significant. The height of the chimney studied in this paper is more than 210 m, and the foundation of chimney is mainly composed of silty clay. The chimney was constructed in stage and surcharged in an attempt to reduce post-constructed settlement. The settlements of subsoil and chimney were instrumented and monitored for about 3 years. Soil properties were determined from laboratory and field testing, and the parameters used for finite-element analysis were determined by back analysis. The settlements predicted by the advanced Grey Model showed reasonable agreement with measured ones. The predicted settlement of finite-element analysis was smaller than the measured values.