BEARING CAPACITY and BULGING BEHAVIOR of GEOGRID ENCASED STONE COLUMNS

In recent years, geogrid encasement has been used to extend the utilization of stone columns to improve soft soil’s properties. This paper investigates the influence of geogrid encasement on the performance of stone columns in soft clay deposits. Experimental and numerical studies were conducted to figure out behavior of stone columns with and without geogrid reinforcement. The small scale laboratory tests were carried out. In addition, PLAXIS which is a finite element package intended for the two dimensional analysis of deformation and stability in geotechnical engineering was used to numerical studies. Before conducting the numerical studies, the validation between results of the experimental studies and numerical analysis was performed. After validation, the numerical studies were performed with different parameters such as the rigidity effect of geogrid, depth of geogrid reinforcement and lateral bulging of the stone columns. In addition, group of stone column was investigated. As a result of this studies, load carrying capacity and bulging behavior of the geogrid encased stone column was significantly influenced from the depth and the stiffness of the geogrid.