Abstract
The present research aims to do a numerical study on the behavior of a test embankment reinforced with stone column spacing of 1.85 m in a square grid with an average diameter of 1.0 m and 11.35 m length. The case study investigated the work in a steel company (ThyssenKrupp), located in Santa Cruz, western region of Rio de Janeiro - Brazil, where a large-sized ore yard was built for loading and unloading activities. It was built on very soft and compressible clay with support of several equipment installed to monitor the area. These data were compared with plane strain analysis results of vertical displacement, horizontal displacement and excess pore pressure obtained by two finite element programs: PLAXIS and RS² (Rocsience). Results showed that Mohr Coulomb model predicted well vertical displacement comparing with a Cam-Clay model and the instrumentation data. Simulated curves of excess pore pressure and horizontal displacement presented expected peculiarities that are interpreted throughout the article. Numerical analysis of yielding columns demonstrate compatibility between both models.
Highlights
Population growth and the necessity to expand projects to new areas outside metropolitan centers force industrial and residential constructions to move towards remote and often uninhabited places
In order to compute the results of the numerical analysis, displacement nodes and stress points were fixed at the field instrumentation original positions
For Leroueil (2001), the safety factor on soft clay can be estimated by the horizontal displacement rate at the bottom of the slope that cannot exceed 10 mm/day
Summary
Population growth and the necessity to expand projects to new areas outside metropolitan centers force industrial and residential constructions to move towards remote and often uninhabited places. Problems before solved with analytical and semi-empirical methods can be calculated with great accuracy and according to the particularities and behavior of each study. These analyses include studies of the stone column technique for predicting soil behavior. Field load tests may be a good alternative for understanding the behavior of the stone columns reflecting the actual response of the site through data response Such tests are harder to perform than numerical and analytical studies (e.g. Mestat et al, 2006; Yee et al, 2007; Egan et al, 2008; Weber et al, 2008; McCabe et al, 2009)
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