Abstract
Wrapping granular soils with geosynthetic to form a “soilbag” results in a significant enhancement in the bearing capacity of foundation elements formed from such bags due to additional confining pressure induced by the confinement. This paper describes the modeling and efficacy in soil improvement of soilbag columns (SBCs) as compared to encased sand columns (ESCs). Compared to ESCs, the mathematical modeling of SBCs is complicated by the three-dimensional nature of soilbags. Three-dimensional finite element models were thus developed for both soil improvement techniques and were validated with experimental data. The results of a series of parametric finite element analyses that highlighted the benefits of SBCs, as compared to ESCs, under different conditions in loose sand, are presented. To conduct such analyses, the encased and surrounding soils’ properties were varied, along with the geosynthetic stiffness and length ratios. The results of these analyses indicate that, compared to ESCs, SBCs perform better in compression. The performance of SBCs is enhanced by using backfill materials with higher friction angles or using stiffer geosynthetic.
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