Faculty Publications
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Item Stone Columns with Vertical Circumferential Nails: Laboratory Model Study(2010) Shivashankar, R.; Dheerendra Babu, M.R.D.; Nayak, S.; Manjunath, R.This paper presents results from a series of laboratory plate load tests carried out in unit cell tanks to investigate the improvement in stiffness, load carrying capacity and resistance to bulging of stone columns installed in soft soils. A new method of reinforcing the stone columns with vertical nails installed along the circumference of the stone column is suggested for improving the performance of these columns. Tests were carried out with two types of loading (1) the entire area in the unit cell tank loaded, to estimate the stiffness of improved ground and (2) only the stone column loaded, to estimate the limiting axial capacity. It is found that stone columns reinforced with vertical nails along the circumference have much higher load carrying capacity and undergo lesser compression and lesser lateral bulging as compared to conventional stone columns. The benefit of vertical circumferential nails increases with increase in the diameter, number and depth of embedment of the nails. The improvement in the performance of stone column was found to be more significant, even with lower area ratio. It is found that reinforcing stone column with vertical circumferential nails at the top portion to a depth equal to three times the diameter of stone columns, will be adequate to prevent the column from excessive bulging and to improve its load carrying capacity substantially. © 2010 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.Item Experimental Studies on Behaviour of Stone Columns in Layered Soils(2011) Shivashankar, R.; Dheerendra Babu, M.R.D.; Nayak, S.; Rajathkumar, V.Stone columns are found to be effective and economical ground improvement technique in soft grounds. Understanding its behaviour when they are installed in stratified soils, in particular when the upper layer consists of weak soil, will be of great practical significance. This paper presents results from a series of laboratory plate load tests carried out in unit cell tanks to investigate the behaviour of stone columns in layered soils, consisting of weak soft clay overlying a relatively stronger silty soil, for various thicknesses of the top layer. Tests were carried out with two types of loading (1) the entire area in the unit cell tank loaded, to estimate the stiffness of improved ground and (2) only the stone column loaded, to estimate the limiting axial capacity. Laboratory tests were carried out on a column of 90 mm diameter surrounded by layered soil, for an area ratio of 15%. It is found that the depth of top weak layer thickness has a significant influence on the stiffness, load bearing capacity and bulging behavior of stone columns. © 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V.Item A model study on accelerated consolidation of coir reinforced laterite and blended shedi soil with vertical sand drains for pavement foundations(2012) George, V.; Santosh, G.; Hegde, R.N.; Durga Prashanth, L.; Gotamey, D.; Ravi Sankar, A.U.Sub-grade soils of lateritic origin are frequently encountered in the construction of highway embankments in various regions of India, often comprise intrusions of soft lithomargic soils that result in large settlements during constructions, and differential settlements at later stages. This necessitates the use of appropriate soil improvement techniques to improve the load-carrying capacity of pavements. Coir is a natural fiber that can be used in place of geosynthetics and geogrids, and it is biodegradable and environment friendly. This work deals with the accelerated consolidation of un-reinforced and coir-reinforced laterite and blended lithomargic soils, provided with three vertical sand drains. The load-settlement characteristics were studied for various preloads ranging from 50kg (0.0013 N/mm2) to 500kg (0.013N/mm2) using circular ferro-cement moulds. It was observed that at lower preloads up to 300kg, the relative increase in consolidation (Cr) for randomly reinforced soil with vertical drains was significantly higher than that of un-reinforced soil without vertical drains. Also, the Cr for un-reinforced soil with vertical drains was quite higher than that of un-reinforced soil without vertical drains, with values above 38.71%. However, in the case of higher preloads of 450kg and 500kg, the Cr for randomly reinforced soil with vertical drains was insignificant, and the Cr for un-reinforced soil with vertical drains remained slightly higher at around 9.59% for similar comparisons. The aspect-ratio of coir fibers used was 1: 275. © 2012 Cafet-Innova Technical Society. All rights reserved.Item Effects of prestressing the reinforcement on the behavior of reinforced granular beds overlying weak soil(Elsevier Ltd, 2014) Shivashankar, R.; Jayamohan, J.The effects of prestressing the reinforcement on the strength improvement and settlement reduction of a reinforced granular bed overlying weak soil are being investigated through a series of laboratory scale bearing capacity tests. The influences of parameters such as strength of underlying weak soil, thickness of granular bed, magnitude of prestressing force, direction of prestressing forces and number of layers of reinforcement are being examined. Finite element analyses are carried out using the FE program PLAXIS to study the effect of prestressing the reinforcement. Results obtained from finite element analyses are found to be in reasonably good agreement with the experimental results. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.Item Evaluation of lateritic soil stabilized with Arecanut coir for low volume pavements(Elsevier Ltd, 2015) Lekha, B.M.; Goutham, G.; Ravi Shankar, A.U.Soil stabilization is a common method used by engineers and designers to enhance the properties of soil with different stabilizers. From ancient times, usage of natural fiber in soil as reinforcement is an effective technology adopted. This paper presents the effect of including randomly spaced Arecanut coir to the soil mix. The engineering properties and bearing capacity of a soil get enhanced by stabilizing it with Arecanut coir and a binding material (cement). The information available on experiments and research on the behavior of soil cement mixtures were collected and a few studies conducted on fiber reinforcement were referred. The current study mainly focuses on the durability test and physical evaluation of soil cement mixtures reinforced with Arecanut coir. Coir content was varied from 0.2% to 1% with an increment of 0.2%. For further improvement, a uniform dosage of 3% cement was added to soil. Laboratory tests including the Unconfined Compressive Strength (UCS), California Bearing Ratio (CBR), durability and fatigue behavior, were conducted as per standards. The test results indicated that the improvement in characteristics of the soil cement coir mixtures were functions of coir dosage, soil type and curing days. Durability test satisfied at 1% Arecanut coir with 3% cement. The stress-strain values were determined and damage analysis was conducted for the higher dosage of Arecanut coir using KENPAVE software. From the results it is observed that, the Arecanut coir reinforced cement soil mix can be used for low volume roads (traffic ?1 million standard axles) and few design cases have been discussed. © 2014 Elsevier Ltd.Item Numerical study of basal reinforced embankments supported on floating/end bearing piles considering pile-soil interaction(Elsevier Ltd, 2015) Bhasi, A.; Rajagopal, K.Construction sites consisting of soft soils may require ground improvement to prevent excessive settlements or bearing capacity type failures and shear movements, which results in construction delays and premature failures. Among the various ground improvement techniques, the Geosynthetic Reinforced Piled Embankment Systems (GRPES) provide a practical and efficient solution due to the low cost and short construction times. Most of the piled embankments are constructed on end bearing piles. At large depths of foundation soil, floating piles are more economical and technically feasible than the end bearing piles. The design of floating piles involves complex soil-structure interaction and there are no clear uniform guidelines available for the design of embankments supported on floating piles. This paper presents the results of numerical investigation into the performance of geosynthetic reinforced embankments supported on end bearing as well as floating piles considering the pile-soil and geosynthetic-soil interaction. 3-D Column models are employed to carry out the parametric studies on factors such as the development of arching, skin friction distribution along the pile length and axial force distribution. Full three-dimensional analyses are carried out to study the overall behavior of the GRPES system and the results obtained from the analyses were compared with those from British Standard BS8006-2010. The results indicated that the use of floating piles could considerably reduce the settlements and the embankment load transferred through the piles to the foundation soil is found to depend very much on the length of the piles. This aspect needs to be accounted for while calculating the arching factor in the empirical equations. © 2015 Elsevier Ltd.Item Establishing relationships for strength characteristics of lateritic soils with varying silt fractions(CAFET INNOVA Technical Society 1-2-18/103, Mohini Mansion, Gagan Mahal Road, Domalguda, Hyderabad 500029, 2016) Kumar, A.; George, V.; Marathe, S.Design and construction of highway embankments constitute a major component of highway engineering science. Poor sub-grade strength, overloading due to traffic loads, and seismic vibrations can cause distress to pavement sub-grades and embankments. Inadequate compaction and poor sub soil drainage, in addition to low bearing strength of soils cause failure of embankments especially in submersible regions. The present study is focused on performing investigations on the engineering properties of lateritic and lithomargic soils and the effect of fines on soil strength. Tests such as California Bearing Ratio (CBR), tests for unconfined compressive strength (UCS), and tri-axial tests are carried to study the strength behavior of soil on addition of lithomargic soils. Additionally, the development of regressions will help field engineers in estimating the value of the CBR based on simple laboratory experiments such as Unconfined Compression strength test, and the Triaxial test. © 2016 CAFET-INNOVA TECHNICAL SOCIETY. All rights reserved.Item 3-dimensional numerical modelling of sand bed reinforced with 3D geogrids of triangular form(Australian Geomechanics Society, 2019) Makkar, F.M.; Sreya, M.V.; Chandrakaran, S.; Sankar, N.In this paper, the bearing capacity improvement of a square footing resting on sand bed reinforced with 3D geogrids of triangular form is numerically studied with the help of Plaxis 3D software. The performance of 3D geogrid reinforced sand is also compared with planar geogrid reinforced sand to understand its effectiveness. In the numerical modelling, the soil behaviour is simulated by linear elastic-perfectly plastic Mohr-Coulomb model. The 3Dgeogrid and planar geogrid is modelled using geogrid structural elements available in the software. The model was validated with the experimental results and found to be in fairly good agreement with each other. The effect of various parameters on the behaviour of reinforced soil system was also investigated. It was found that the bearing capacity of multilayered planar geogrid reinforced sand bed improved by 3.68 times, while, the 3D geogrid reinforced sand bed shows 6.8 times improvement compared to the unreinforced sand bed. © 2019 Australian Geomechanics Society. All rights reserved.Item Performance Evaluation of Coir Geocells as Soil Retention System Under Dry and Wet Conditions(Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH info@springer-sbm.com, 2020) Chitrachedu, R.K.; Kolathayar, S.In the present study, coir is used to fabricate geocells and to construct model retaining walls for application in sloppy regions to retain the soil. The performance of coir geocells under dry and wet conditions during rainfall were evaluated by conducting laboratory model tests. The study presents horizontal and vertical deformation against surcharge load for different scenarios of reinforcement using geocells. A comparison was made between the performance of unreinforced slope, high-density polyethylene geocell retaining wall and coir geocell retaining wall to evaluate the potential of coir geocell over synthetic geocell as reinforcement. The roughness and absence of perforations in coir material resisted the movement and failure of the wall for a longer span. The horizontal displacement was more for coir geocell retaining wall compared to wall made of high density polyethylene (HDPE) geocells. This may be due to the interlocking effect in coir HDPE geocell as perforations provide contact between the sand particles. The inexpensive and easily disposable coir can be effectively used as reinforcement in the construction of a retaining wall. © 2020, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.Item Study on Behaviour of Two Adjacent Strip Footings on Unreinforced/Reinforced Granular Bed Overlying Clay with Voids(Springer Science and Business Media Deutschland GmbH, 2021) Anaswara, S.; Shivashankar, R.This paper numerically studies the behaviour of two adjacent strip footings on unreinforced and reinforced granular bed (RGB) overlying clay having voids. The influence of different parameters such as granular bed thickness, length of reinforcement/s, number of layers of reinforcement, presence of void/s beneath the footing/s in the weak soil, on the behaviour of footings are carried out in this study. It is found that there is a certain optimum spacing between the two adjacent strip footings at which the footing/s carry the maximum load. The voids could be formed in weak soil due to various reasons and the presence of voids may affect the performance of footings. Such voids tend to reduce the load carrying capacity of the footing/s. However, providing a RGB over weak soil can be used as an effective method to maintain the good performance of footings, even when voids could be formed in future. © 2020, Springer Nature Switzerland AG.