Simplified technique achieving low cost and high performance impact for construction in very deep very soft ground sites

Abstract

Geotechnical engineers are still facing the true harmful problems of the very deep deposits of very soft clay soils for structural foundations. It is believed that the current used methods of geotechnical engineering improvement in soft clays are justified on the basis that pre-knowledge of the potential problems can lead to economic benefits if the planning, design, and construction of projects can be modified to suit the problems to provide increase of its strength, reduction of total and differential settlement, reasonable cost, and shorten construction time. Therefore, the cost-effective alternatives play significantly an essential role to evaluate considerably the efficiency among the widely used current methods in this true problematic field. From this considerable point, vast experience has been acquired to solve this problem through soft ground improvement before turning to deep foundations which need considerably huge cost especially for the very deep very soft ground. Unfortunately, the improvement magnitudes of the most widely used current techniques do not suit even fairly with their required cost and their installation difficulty which need highest level of accuracy.In this paper, innovative convenient type of foundation system has been laboratory tested to evaluate the significance through the aspect of cost-effective alternative which is clearly unachieved by the currently used techniques. This novel technique was achieved by high efficiency rate, simplicity for execution, huge increase of strength under footings, rapid rate of construction process, considerable saving in the required cost, and significantly reduce total and differential settlement.