Ground improvement using stone column construction encased with geogrid

Using stone column to improve weak soil can be considered as an economic and technical viable for construction projects on the soft soil. According to the case history of the stone column it was provided that it is the best way of successful application for foundation of the structure such as, oil storage tanks, raft foundation, earth embankments. It should be noted that through the installation of the stone column inside the soil the lateral confinement offered by the soil around the stone may not be adequate to form the stone column; in this case encasing the stone column by the geogrid can induce the required lateral confinement. Experimental studies in the present work are carried out to investigate the behaviour of the stone column encased with Geogrid, Tests are carried out on a single installed stone column (ordinary and encased) in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the single column on bearing capacity and settlement. It was found that encasing the stone column with geogrid results in an increase in load carrying capacity and reduction in a settlement in comparison with the case without geogrid. By using geogrid, the ultimate bearing capacity increased by 60% compared to that without geogrid and load-bearing capacity increased by 20% for 10 mm settlement. Numerical analysis will be carried out by using PLAXIS 3D to validate the test and to make comparison between them