Load Settlement Behavior Of Footings On Weak Soil Improved By Floating Granular Piles

Basuony M. El-Garhy
Page no. 79-93

This paper introduces a rational method for predicting the load settlement behavior of rigid footing resting on weak soil reinforced by a group of floating granular piles. The floating granular piles are considered an economic alternative system to fully penetrated granular piles in case of deep weak soil layer or in case of lightly loaded structures. Based on the unit cell concept, an equation is developed for calculating the stress concentration ratio between floating granular pile and surrounding weak soil. The homogenization concept in conjunction with the stress concentration ratio is used to develop a method for predicting the load settlement curve of rigid footing resting on weak soil reinforced by a group of floating granular piles. A computer program called GPILES is developed for predicting the load settlement curve using the developed method. For the purpose of validation comparisons are made between the load settlement curves obtained by the developed procedure and the measured load settlement curves from two full scale field load tests. Good agreements are obtained between measured and predicted load settlement curves. 

Key words:  load settlement curve, footing, weak soil, floating granular piles