Tips for Construction over soft soil

mary787 (Civil/Environmental)
(OP)

8 Sep 03 13:33
I need to build a segmental wall on soft soil having N value of ZERO from 0 till 10 m deep near a monsoon
drain . How to have a foundation of 100KN/M2 by replacing the soft soil with crusher rock & how deep to
replace ?
I have suggested to client to replace 1.2m of soft soil
A) with bottom layer 0.6m of 200mm size crush rock wrap with membrane
B) Also

with

top

layer

0.6m

of

50mm

crush

rock

on

top

wrap

with

membrane

Any suggestion & calculation formula to convince my client ?

C)

ishvaaag (Structural)8 Sep 03 13:56

You say N is 0 which is then truly a soil of poor strength, and this to the significant depth -to almost any
construction- of 10 m. I frankly if facing such problem would have to think what to do seeing what the intent is
and what we have to consider in the site. People that to this site comes to answer and facing problems of poor
soils normally targeted to road works is usually happy in recommending geotextile help for the works. I coming
from architectural works acknowledge the usefulness of these but am two orders of magnitude less prone to
recommend such things. Hence, in my view you have a difficult problem, mere replacement in less than the
soft soil depth is not a solution in my view, even if it partially can be considered or even proven to be so.
Then your application is a wall. For a building one surely soon would go with piles to competent layers, maybe
piled mats or even vessel foundations, or foundations balanced with the weights. But for a significant wall (not
merely a 1 m tall thing, in which the problem would be the same but less untreatable) a floating foundation
itself doesn't make sense if the wall itself is not buttressed against anything to be stable and inmobile enough
as to provide the demanded serviceability. Hence, the vertical stabilization by flotation if used would surely
need horizontal (and/or vertical) supplement by piles to competent soil able to sustain the whole horizontal
forces. I would (gladly!) consider any contribution of the standing ground layers as long I would find them
truly of use by my technical interpretation.

SlideRuleEra (Structural)8 Sep 03 14:46

Investigate a "Floating Foundation" which displaces it's weight in "mud". Most foundation textbooks cover the
basics.

Focht3 (Geotechnical)8 Sep 03 14:53

If my math is right, 100 KN/m2 = 100 kPa ~ 1 tsf.
You can't have a "net zero load" foundation - the applied load is too high for the depth in question. I suspect
the answer may be wick drains or stone columns to improve the site - or a pile foundation to provide
support. Please describe the soil (type, water content, other properties, thicknesses) so that we can give you
some better suggestions and comments -

Please see FAQ731-376 by VPL for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.

BigH (Geotechnical)8 Sep 03 15:12

This sounds like my site presently - we are using wick drains to gain shear strength - but rather than N values,
what are the approximate undrained shear strengths? 15kPa??, 10kPa?? No way will the ground, even with
some treatment of 2m of replace hold up a wall of more than 3m or so with any reserve of safety. I couldn't
really recommend it here as, well, it's never been used to my knowledge here, but if you are in the States or
Europe, try geofoam as the material to be used. This applies a no-load situation. You can use a facing panel
with geogrids or metal strips between blocks to hold the facing in place - it will make it look like an MSE wall.

mary787 (Civil/Environmental)
(OP)

9 Sep 03 12:25
Thanks alot for all the advices , concerning BigH on wick drain to build the soft soil shear strength ,
Question ; WHAT IS A WICK DRAIN DRAIN & HOW IT CAN BUILD UP THE SHEAR STRENGTH ?
Appreciate your precious infor

ishvaaag (Structural)9 Sep 03 12:47

With such a soft soil I also would start to think about the likelihood of soil liquefaction, and deep surfaces of
failure. No matter how nice is the set structure, if the soil flows under it -even if standing- it will be no nice
retention structure.

Mudcake (Geotechnical)9 Sep 03 15:23

Wick drain is a good idea if the construction schedule allows the new fill to sit for a while while the underlying
soils consolidate. What about something like gepiers? Depending on your height, the geopiers may not need
to extend to the base of soft soils (you need to do a stability anaysis to figure out the minimum geopier depth)

npthao121 (Structural)9 Sep 03 23:40

Dear all,
This is a actuall case:
I have a chance to visit a site which is in the same condition like yours, 11 m of weak OH soil, about 4m of
surcharge by well compacted sand. Fence (by clay brick) is supported by shallow foundation placed directly on
the soil. The fence high is 2.3m as initial design. one and half year later, the fence is only 1.3 m high, 1 m
already disappeared.
In this site, main & heavy structures are supported by pile foundation but the others are just supported by
shallow foundation with some small woodden pile (the length is about 5 m, meaningless). Probably, the
designer though fence is just miscellaneous simple structure. At the present this site still settle down, and the
owner is calling for bid to treat this consolidation settlement.
After the experience getting from this site, the other sites neighbour to it applied wick drain or piled foundation
for almost structure (fence, small building etc). of course the cost is increased.

BigH (Geotechnical)10 Sep 03 06:34

Mary787:
Wick drains are prefabricated vertical drains (of similar operation to the older sand drains). You can install
these units quickly using a crane-mounted "stitcher". What you are doing is using vertical drains to reduce the
drainage path of "escaping" water during consolidation.
As for increasing the undrained shear strength, as soil is compressed by loading (hopefully preloading), water
in the soil is forced out to the vertical drains. As the void ratio is thus decreased, there is an increase in the
undrained shear strength accordingly.
You can check out the US Army manual on settlements. Also, check out Terzaghi, Peck and Mesri (p323);
Coduto (Geotechnical Engineering) (p672, Tchebotarioff; Bowles (Focht3 - I tried not to reference this - I really
did). You can also do a search on "wick drains" underwww.rediff.com or other search engines. There is a
lot of reference out there on the net.

Focht3 (Geotechnical)10 Sep 03 08:45

BigH:
Yeah, right!
mary787:
Strength and moisture content are inversely related (in a general sense) - as moisture content decreases the
shear strength increases. The soil's density will also increase as the moisture content decreases as BigH indicated. You should expect the ground to settle as the drainage occurs - Do you have a geotechnical
engineer for your project?

Please see FAQ731-376 by VPL for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.

ishvaaag (Structural)10 Sep 03 12:44

Mary says monsoon area, so the flooding -more or less- is likely to be recurrent. Hence I don't think that
consolidation by

just draining

maybe

of midterm

help,

even if if available

would

be great.

I think for areas like this that surely are inhabited to such extent as to require public works treatment precisely
by the richness brought by the seasonal rains, any modern policy must demand the usefulness of what built to
stand for some time, and this demands the use of technologies able to cope with the recurrent monsoons.
Hence anything to be dissolved each year should be more or less dismissed. Floating structures, anchors
between them, piling for most works of reasonable value and cost of replacement plus bridging between these
and the others, is in my view the way to go.

mary787 (Civil/Environmental)
(OP)

11 Sep 03 22:32
mary787
I wish to thank all of you who have provided very good informations with regards to my question on soft soil
foudation
Thank

.
You

GOD BLESS YOU

Focht3 (Geotechnical)12 Sep 03 01:47

ishvaaag:
I understand your concern for "things washing away" in monsoon areas. But sometimes it is cheaper to
rebuild (several times) than it is to use a structural approach (to do things "right") in constructing 'minor'
structures.

I would not expect a wall bearing on improved soil to simply melt away. Done properly, it will last for many
years - perhaps decades. But I do understand and appreciate your concerns -

Please see FAQ731-376 by VPL for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips Fora.