Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, Vol. 43, No.

4, 2006

CONSTRUCTION UNDER SPECIAL SOIL CONDITIONS

ACTIVE REINFORCEMENT OF WEAK SOILS DURING

CONSTRUCTION OF HIGH-CAPACITY HOLDING TANKS

A. A. Zemlyanskii UDC 624.138:624.131.23

Balakovo Institute of Engineering and Technology.

Results are presented for experimental investigations of a new method for the active ring
reinforcement of a weak soil during construction of a new generation of large holding tanks
with controlled service reliability.

In recent years, serious attention at all levels of legislative authority has been focused on energy-
safety problems in Russia. The problem of improving the storage efficiency and safety of petroleum prod-
ucts in vertical steel holding tanks (VSHT) occupies a special position here.
Analysis of inspection results for several hundred tanks in Russia, England, Japan, and the United
States [1] has enabled us to establish that avalanche-like and irreversible emergencies and failures of struc-
tures occur mainly due to large absolute and nonuniform settlements of the soil bed beneath these entities.
This has been confirmed by numerous studies conducted by Sorochan and Abelev [2-4]. There are current-
ly a multitude of passive methods for the strengthening of weak soils, among which such methods as their
vertical and horizontal reinforcement using various metallic, synthetic, and new composite materials are
classed.
Practical use of ring piles and continuous sheet piling makes it possible to achieve a certain effect
due to vertical- and horizontal-stress redistribution, which is caused by a change in the boundary conditions
of the loaded bed. For a loaded bed with an equal external-load intensity, however, its settlement is reduced
by no more than 60% as a result of the indicated reinforcement; this does not make it possible to achieve
fail-safe and effective service from high-capacity tanks.
The above suggests the urgency of the problem, which is associated with the need to develop prin-
cipally new methods for the active strengthening of weak soils and the creation of nontraditional systems of
soil reinforcement.
The author has developed a new principle for improving the bearing capacity of a soil as a result of
its active horizontal reinforcement using hollow circular sheet piling, which is prestressed with respect to
the surrounding soil (Fig. 1).
Here, prestressing of the soil residing in the outer zone of a ring sheet-piling wall may occur as a
result of air pressure, liquid pressure, or self-expanding soil-cement grout, which is injected into the effec-
tive recess of the ring sheet-pile wall. Theoretical investigations conducted by the author using the certified
program "Lira" made it possible to optimize the basic dimensions of the ring element.
It was established that for minimum expenditures, the effective diameter of the ring reinforcing
element should satisfy the condition D
1.3d, where d is the diameter of the tank. The effective height

Translated from Osnovaniya, Fundamenty i Mekhanika Gruntov, No. 4, pp. 15-18, July-August, 2006.
131
0038-0741/06/4304-0131 2006 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc.
 I-I
I I

Fig. 1. Structural diagram of circular sheet-piling prestressed with respect

to soil: 1 and 2) outer and inner walls of circular sheet-piling system;
3) effective zone of prestressed soil; 4) load due to bottom of tank;
5) pressure of prestressed soil.

a b c

d e

Fig. 2. Reinforcing schemes for soil bed beneath VSHT: a) nonreinforced soil bed; b and c) passive
reinforcement of soil by horizontal elements and rigid embedded ring, respectively; d) active
reinforcement of soil in circumferential direction by piles prestressed with respect to soil; e)
same, by ring element prestressed with respect to soil.

of the prestressed ring element should fall within the range H
0.3d, while the distance h of the pre-
stressed ring element from the daylight surface of the soil bed should be no more than 0.02d. The results
obtained also suggest major redistribution of horizontal and vertical stresses in the soil bed under inves-
tigation; in practice, this will lead to a sharp increase in the bearing capacity of the soil medium under
consideration.
To substantiate experimentally the effectiveness of the active and passive reinforcement of the soil,
we conducted a series of investigations to evaluate qualitatively and quantitatively the reduction in deforma-
bility of the soil bed. Five reinforcing schemes were examined for the soil bed (Fig. 2).
All experiments were conducted in a 334-m pan filled with a medium-grain quartz sand with a
o
density = 1.6 kg/cm3, moisture content
12%, angle of internal friction = 34 , and overall compres-
sion modulus E0 = 5.4 MPa. The load q0 due to the bottom of the tank was simulated by a rubber diaphragm
hermetically secured to an absolutely rigid plates with diameters of 60 and 120 cm, through which it was
possible to transmit an absolutely uniform distributed load with an intensity q0 pneumatically.

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 q0, MPa

S, mm

Fig. 3. Diagram showing dependence of average settlement of flexible

plate on external load and method used to reinforce soil bed:
1) nonreinforced soil bed; 2 and 3) passive reinforcement of
soil with linear and rigid ring elements, respectively; 4 and 5)
active reinforcement of soil, respectively, with piles
prestressed with respect to soil in circumferential direction,
and ring element with prestressed inner zone of soil.

In the first scheme, the soil was loaded by an absolutely flexible plate without any reinforcement of
the soil bed; as for the second, reinforcement was accomplished with a metallic foil placed horizontally in
the soil in three layers in mutually perpendicular directions; for the third, reinforcement was effected in a
passive regime using a rigid ring with a height equal to the diameter of the effective plate removed from
the daylight surface by h = 0.1d; in the fourth scheme, the reinforcement was in the circumferential direc-
tion with single piles having a height H = d and active prestress with respect to the soil, and spaced at a
distance l  3d one from the other; and, for the fifth scheme, the reinforcement was in an active regime
using an ring element, which makes it possible to prestress the soil in the inner recess of the ring in stages.
As a result of the entire cycle of experiments, we obtained curves of the average settlements of the
absolutely flexible plate versus the intensity of the external load and the type of soil reinforcement, respec-
tively (Fig. 3).
Analysis of the results obtained indicates that the average settlement of the soil bed under a vertical
load with an intensity q0 = 0.12 MPa uniformly distributed over an effective plate with a diameter of 60
cm was approximately 39 mm, 24 mm, and barely 20 mm, respectively, for the first, second, and third
schemes, and about 18 mm for the fourth scheme where the soil was actively prestressed around single piles
within the limits q0 = 0.12 MPa. For the same level of prestress, the settlement with respect to the fifth
scheme amounted to all of 0.88 mm; this suggests the high effectiveness of the method proposed for active
horizontal reinforcement of weak soils. As a result of prestressing the soil with a special ring element, the
average settlement of the surface the soil bed investigated was reduced by more than 40 times with respect
to that of the nonreinforced scheme.
For step-by-step optimization of the dimensions of the ring prestress system, and the zones of active
reinforcement of the soil bed under investigation, we conducted a series of experiments using a classical
planning matrix for a four-factorial experiment. Here, all physico-mechanical characteristics of the soil were
fixed at the same assigned level presented above. We also used the four most significant and dominant fac-
tors, to which the following apply: the intensity of the external vertical uniformly distributed load q0 (X1)
(MPa), transmitted onto the soil under investigation via the flexible rubber membrane of the absolutely rigid
plate; the prestress intensity of the soil q (X2) (MPa), created as a result of the ring reinforcement of the
soil, the distance h from the ring reinforcement of the soil to the daylight surface (X3) (cm); and, the height
H of the ring element for active prestress of the soil (X4) (cm) with its diameter held constant.
Figure 4 shows the scheme employed to load pneumatically the bed under investigation with active
ring reinforcement of the soil, the displacement of load-cell strain gages, and the displacements of the soil
during the course of the experiments.
Implementation of the planning matrix for the four-factorial experiment with a planned sequence and
combination of the factors under investigation enabled us to derive the following regression equation:

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 Fig. 4. Schematic diagram showing pneumatic loading of soil bed via flexible membrane,
and displacement of load cell for evaluation of stress-strain state of bed under inves-
tigation: 1) ring system for soil reinforcement; 2) rigid plate with absolutely flexible
membrane; 3) system for pneumatic loading of effective plate; 4 and 5) system for
pressure measurement, respectively, in plate and ring system; 6 and 7) load-cell
strain gages for pressure measurement, respectively, in vertical and horizontal directions;
X1-X4) active factors (q0, prestress pressure q of soil, h, and height H of ring
reinforcement system).

^
Y cpi = 2,838 + 1,123 X1 0, 246 X 2 +
+0, 266 X 3 0,927 X 4 0,00162 X 1X 2 +
+0,121 X1 X 3 0,315 X 1X 4 + 0,593 X 2X 3
0, 288 X 2 X 4 0, 480 X 3X 1 + 0,393 X 1X 2X 3
0,103 X1 X 2 X 3 X 4 ,

^
where Y cpi is the average settlement of the daylight surface of the bed soil under a uniformly distributed
load of intensity q0.
Overall analysis of the regression equation obtained indicated its sufficiently high adequacy, since
the error between the experimental and computed data did not exceed 6-8% for the case under considera-
tion; this was also confirmed additionally by Fisher's variance ratio [5].
Analysis of the mathematical model obtained suggests that X1, i.e., q0 exerts the greatest influence on
the bed under investigation. As the sign before the correlation coefficient indicates, moreover, the settlement
of the soil bed increases with increasing load.
The height H of the reinforcing element of the soil, in our case, X4, holds down second place with
respect to influential effect. Here, the greater H, the smaller the expected settlement.
Coming in third is the distance X3 of the reinforcing element from the daylight surface the greater
the distance, the greater the settlement of the loaded bed.
For the case under consideration, q (X2) within the mass investigated occupies fourth place the
higher q, the lower the expected Y^ cpi.
Detailed analysis of the results obtained made it possible to establish the high effectiveness of the
method proposed for active ring reinforcement of weak soils.
On the whole, the studies that we conducted have enabled us to create a new class of systems for
the active reinforcement of soil, and nontraditional ring foundations, the bearing capacities and service reli-
abilities of which can be effectively and purposefully controlled to prevent any potentially possible failure
or prefailure situations.

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REFERENCES

1. Yu. K. Ivanov, P. A. Konovalov, R. A. Mangushev, and S. N. Sotnikov, Beds and Foundations of Holding
Tanks [in Russian], Stroiizdat, Moscow (1989).
2. E. A. Corochan, Fundamentals of Industrial Buildings [in Russian], Stroiizdat, Moscow (1986).
3. E. A. Sorochan, Construction of Structures on Swelling Soils [in Russian], Stroiizdat, Moscow (1989).
4. M. Yu. Abelev, Construction of Industrial And Civil Structures on Weak Saturated Soils [in Russian],
Stroiizdat, Moscow (1983).
5. V. A. Kovshov, Formulation of Engineering Experiments [in Russian], Vysshaya Shkola, Kiev-
Donetsk (1982).

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