FAILURE PROCESS OF STONE COLUMNS IN COLLAPSIBLE SOILS

Many countries in the word have loose and unstable soils encompassing a wide range of geological materials, which when inundated, may collapse and cause very significant distress to the structure. Stone columns have been used to strengthen such soils; even so, there are still cases where failure has occurred. In this technical note, the process and causes of stone column failure in reinforcing collapsible soils is examined. A behavior analysis of a typical element of soil in the vicinity of column during inundation was studied. The difference between the behavior of a stone column in a collapsible fill and a column in a non-collapsible fill is reported in this paper. Also a solution for the problem of stone column failure is suggested.