Experimental Studies on Bearing Capacity of Geosynthetic Reinforced Stone Columns

The stone column is a useful method for increasing the bearing capacity and reducing the settlements of foundations. The confinement provided by the native soft soils has an effective influence on the stone column bearing capacity. In this paper, laboratory tests were performed on unreinforced and reinforced geotextile-encased stone columns. Tests were performed on columns with diameters of 60, 80, and 100 mm and a length to diameter ratio of 5. Vertical encased stone columns (VESC) and horizontal reinforced stone columns (HRSC) were used for stone column reinforcement to investigate the effect of reinforcement type on the bearing capacity. The main objective of this research is to study the efficiency of VESC and HRSC under the same conditions for diameters of 60, 80, and 100 mm. Experimental results show that the bearing capacity of stone columns increases using vertical or horizontal reinforcing material. Moreover, the bearing capacity of reinforced stone columns increases by increasing the strength of reinforcement in both VESC and HRSC. Results show that bulging failure mechanism governed in all tests and that lateral bulging decreases using geotextiles and increasing strength of reinforcement. In addition, for both VESC and HRSC, the stress concentration ratio of the columns also increases.