The Feasibility Study on Treating Soft-Soil with Lightweight-Pile Composite Foundation

The new method of soft foundation treatment in continuous exploration, the introduction of lightweight materials to overcome the low bearing capacity of soft soil foundation is considered to have a good prospect. In this article, it is assumed that the lightweight material can be used as the vertical reinforcement in the form of short pile to form the composite foundation with the soft soil, and to bear the overlying load. Firstly, the material parameters of the lightweight pile under the working conditions were calculated by numerical analysis. According to the calculated parameters of the pile body, the feasible materials were selected, EPS (expanded polystyrene) was preferred for further study in materials that meet the parameters. Through centrifugal model test, settlement and stress state of lightweight material pile composite foundation were analyzed, its smooth settlement and ideal working condition shows a good treatment effect. The results of numerical analysis and centrifuge model test show that it is theoretically feasible to treat soft foundation with lightweight pile composite foundation.