GROUND IMPROVEMENT
TECHNOLOGY
UDHAYA KUMAR .T, PRIST University, Puducherry 7. udhaya0404@gmail.com .
ABSTRACT: In the rapid expansion in housing,
infrastructure and utilities developments in the last
30 years, engineers have to deal with less favorable
sites such as coastal lowlands, swamps, filled
ground, reclaimed land, etc. A number of mega size
infrastructure projects would have been economically
non-viable and/or technically non-feasible if they had
been constructed using conventional methods meant
for good soil conditions. Ground Improvement
techniques are often used to improve sub soil
properties in terms of their bearing capacity, shear
strength, settlement characteristics, drainage, etc.
Depending upon the loading conditions and nature of
soil, a suitable technique which is also economical
needs to be adopted. It was necessary to explore the
innovations of using non-conventional methods when
poor soil conditions may impair the integrity and
serviceability of the structures. The natural condition
of poor soil needs to be altered to meet the project
requirements where settlement requirements are
more stringent and poor ground strength needs to be
significantly improved, this is termed as ground
improvement. The common types of ground
improvement used are described in this paper. Due to
the increasing awareness of the construction impact
on the environment, sustainable construction
techniques using green technology such as ground
improvement is also increasingly used.
1. INTRODUCTION:
In the early days of development, only the best
available lands having reasonably good soil
conditions are being developed. This is due to the
owners and engineers who have had past experience
with the high cost of foundations on poor soils.
For example, developers tend to shy away from
building on ex-mining lands that demand higher
investment cost on foundation.
In fact, potential foundation problems have played a
significant role in site selection. If a site
investigation has shown that the soil conditions have
been found unusually bad, it has been prudent to
move to a more favorable site.
Due to the rapid development as described above,
the relative importance of good soil conditions in
site selection has diminished.
The growing scarcity of sites having good soil
conditions had made it necessary to utilize all the
remaining land regardless of its soil conditions.
Some sites are now being developed that were once
tin mining lands underlain by soft slime. With the
increasingly large scale development of many
housing and infrastructure makes it necessary to
incorporate both good and bad soil conditions in a
single project.
Factor such as the demand for access to deep water
has made it necessary to develop ports and container
terminals at coastal areas which are very often
unfavorable swamps close to water channels.
Unsuitable sites (also referred to as marginal sites),
most often, the ground imposes restrictions on the
design and the engineer has, apart from abandoning
the project, four options:
1) To replace the poor soils with suitable fill
materials;
 2) To bypass the unsuitable soil by using piles
or deep foundations;
3) To redesign the structure to meet the ground
limitations; or
4) To alter the natural condition of the poor soil
to meet the project requirements.
The latter is often termed as ground
improvement. The partial or complete excavation of
unsuitable soils and their replacement with better fill
materials may be considered
Fine or coarse grained soils can be used as
backfilling materials if the ground water level is
located below the excavation.
Granular materials should be used when the
ground water level is high. Complete replacement is
generally suitable for sites with shallow deposit of
unsuitable soils, usually less than 3m depth.
Ground improvement, is the modification of
existing site foundation soils to provide better
performance under design and/or operational loading
conditions.
Ground improvement techniques are used
increasingly for new projects to allow utilization of
sites with poor subsurface conditions.
In short, Ground improvement is executed to
increase the bearing capacity, reduce the magnitude
of settlements and the time in which it occurs, retard
seepage, accelerate the rate at which drainage occurs,
increase the stability of slopes, mitigation of
liquefaction potential, etc
In the case of constructing a road
embankment, partial structural solution is for the
embankment to rest on piled supported concrete caps
or rafts. A full structural solution is the construction
of viaducts
2. FUNCTIONS OF GROUND
IMPROVEMENT:
Ground improvement is a viable alternative to
conventional structural support solution. In most
instances, it proves to be the more economical
solution. The main functions of ground improvement
are:
1) To control deformation and accelerate
consolidation;
2) To increase bearing capacity and to provide
lateral stability; and
3) To increase resistance to liquefaction.
3. CLASSIFICATION OF GROUND
IMPROVEMENT TECHNOLOGY:
Ground Improvement techniques may be
broadly classified in to following categories:
1) Improvement by deep vibration
2) Improvement by increasing effective
stresses
3) Improvement by reinforcement
4) Improvement by structural fills
5) Improvement by admixtures
6) Improvement by grouting
7) Improvement by thermal stabilization,
etc.
The soil conditions, a suitable method of
ground improvement should be considered keeping in
view of the economic feasibility as well as the time
frame. In practice, ground improvement is widely
used in a broad construction spectrum from
industrial, commercial and housing projects to
infrastructure construction for dams, tunnels, ports,
roadways and embankments.
The wet top feed method.
 The name arises from the fact that water jetting is
used to assist penetration and stone is fed from the
top of the vibrator. In this method, a crawler crane of
sufficient capacity is used to support the assembly
the method of mixing, characteristics of the in-situ
soil, binder content and column diameter.
In the deep soil mixing process,
admixtures/binders are introduced into the in-situ
soils throught out the treatment depth and mixed
thoroughly using large diameter single or multiple-
shaft mixing tools to form columns or panels of
improved material (refer to Figure 1.4). The mix-in-
place columns can be up to 1m or more in diameter.
Typical admixtures are cement and lime, but slag /
flyash and/or other additives can also be used.

Fig 1Installation sequence of wet top feed

method.

4. GROUND IMPROVEMENT USING DEEP

SOIL MIXING
Deep Soil Mixing (DSM) technology was
invented almost 30 years ago and is a form of soil
improvement involving the introduction and
mechanical mixing of in-situ soft and weak soils with
a cementitious compound such as lime, cement or a
combination of both in different proportions (CDIT,
2002). The mixture is often referred to as the binder.
The binder is injected into the soil either in a dry (dry
method) or slurry (wet method) form. In case of dry
method, the moisture in the soil is utilized for the
`
binding process. Whereas in the case of wet method,
the slurry of grout with appropriate water-binder ratio
is mixed thoroughly with in-situ soil. The technique
forms columns within the treated zone whilst
improving shear and compressibility parameters of
the in-situ loose/soft soils. The technique ensures
adequate bearing capacity whilst limiting settlement
within serviceability limits. Typically undrained
shear strength of the columns ranges between 100 Fig 2 Schematic showing process of Permeation
and 2000 kPa whereas load carrying capacity of the Grouting
columns ranges between 20T and 50T depending on
5. GROUND IMPROVEMENT USING VIBRO to review the opportunities and constraints of each
COMPACTION: ground improvement techniques; to provide an
Particles of granular soil can be rearranged awareness of on-site adaptation of specific design and
by vibration in such a way that they obtain a higher construction process to suit the prevailing ground
density. In non cohesive soils (granular soils), the conditions.
effective depth of surface compactor and vibratory
roller is limited to a few meters below ground level 7. REFERENCES:
and the larger depths can be reached by deep [1]. H.M.Jonkers and E. Schlangen, A two component bacteria-
based self-healing concrete, Concrete Repair, Rehabilitation and
compaction methods using depth vibrators. The
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Microbiologically Induced Sealant For Concrete Crack
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Africa, Cape Town, 2005, pp. 296-297.
[4]. Stocks-Fischer, S., Galinat, J.K., and Bang,
S.S.Microbiological Precipitation of CaCO3, Soil Biology and
Biochemistry, 31, 1999, 1563-1571.
Installation sequence of Vibro Compaction process [5]. V. Ramakrishnan, R. K. Panchalan, S. S. Bang, and R.City,
Improvement of Concrete Durability By Bacterial Mineral
Precipitation, International Conference on Fracture, 2005.
6. CONCLUSION:
Ground Improvement techniques forms technically
sound and cost effective solution where the sub soils
are weak and needs to be treated to enable the
intended construction. Its applicability has been
proven in the recent past for a wide range of
structures such as roads, runways, ports, power
plants, railways, dams, slope stabilization,
excavations, tunneling and other infrastructure
facilities. These techniques have been used all over
the world for a wide range of soils starting from loose
sands, silts, marine clays to weak rocks. Based on the
soil conditions, loading intensity and intended
performance, an appropriate ground improvement
technique can be designed to attain the desired
performance. The objectives of this paper have been