Stiffening Effect on Settlement Reduction for a Single Partially Stiffened Floating Granular Pile

With increasing rate of development and limitation of land, it becomes necessary to use those areas where typical weak soil conditions occur. One needs to look upon some economic and feasible options for the provision of foundation, and one of the options available is to use the granular pile (GP). This paper presents analysis of a single partially stiffened floating pile. Partial stiffening means replacement of material in the top region of pile by some material, having good mechanical properties, i.e., higher deformation modulus, e.g., RCC, PCC in comparison with conventional material of granular pile, thus not only providing the solution for bulging at the top but also helping in increasing the load-carrying capacity of the GP. In this paper, the variation in settlement reduction factor is analyzed with relative length, relative stiffness of GP, stiffening parameters and is found to decrease with the increase in stiffening parameters. © 2018, The Institution of Engineers (India).