Geotextiles and Geomembranes 46 (2018) 312–318

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Geotextiles and Geomembranes

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/geotexmem

Technical note

Bearing capacity of horizontally layered geosynthetic reinforced stone T

columns
Mahmoud Ghazavia,∗, Ahad Ehsani Yamchia, Javad Nazari Afsharb
a
Civil Engineering Department, K.N. Toosi University of Technology, Tehran, Iran
b
Department of Civil Engineering, Shahr-e-Qods Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: In very soft soils, the bearing capacity of stone columns may not improve significantly due to very low con-
Geothyntetics finement of the surrounding soil. Therefore, they may be reinforced with geosynthetics by using vertical en-
Stone column casement or horizontal layers. Very limited studies exist on horizontally reinforced stone columns (HRSCs). In
Horizontal reinforcing layers this research, some large body laboratory tests have been performed on horizontally reinforced stone columns
Load ratio
with diameters of 60, 80, and 100 mm and groups of stone columns with 60 mm diameter. Results show that the
bearing capacity of stone columns increases by using horizontally reinforcing layers. Also, they reduce lateral
bulging of stone columns by their frictional and interlocking effects with stone column aggregates. Finally,
numerical analyses were carried out to study main affecting parameters on the bearing capacity of HRSCs.
Numerical analysis results show that the bearing capacity increases considerably with increasing the number of
horizontal layers and decreasing space between layers.

1. Introduction (Murugesan and Rajagopal, 2006; Khabbazian et al., 2010; Lo et al.,

Stone columns are often used as a proper ground improvement
method to improve bearing capacity and reduce settlement of super-
structures. In addition, because of high permeability of stone column
material, consolidation rate in fine soils increases and liquefaction po-
tential in liquefiable soil may also be reduced.
The bearing capacity of long ordinary stone columns (OSCs) with
occurance of bulging failure at upper parts of the column mainly de-
pends on confinement offered by surrounding soft soil. In very soft soils,
OSCs may not offer significant load capacity due to very low lateral
confinement (Nazari Afshar and Ghazavi, 2014). Thus, it is necessary to
provide additional confinement by vertical encasing with geosynthetics
(VESC) or using horizontal geosynthetic reinforcement layers (HRSC),
as seen in Fig. 1.
Vertical encasing with geosynthetics was initially proposed by Van
Impe (1989) and has been studied extensively using analytical solutions
(Raithel et al., 2002; Wu et al., 2009; Pulko et al., 2011; Wu and Hong,
2014; Zhang and Zhao, 2015), experiments (Gniel and Bouazza, 2009,
2010; Wu and Hong, 2009; Murugesan and Rajagopal, 2010; Ghazavi
and Nazari Afshar, 2013; Ali et al., 2012, 2014; Yoo et al., 2015;
Miranda and Da Costa, 2016; Hong et al., 2016; Gu et al., 2016; Fattah
et al., 2016; Ou Yang et al., 2017; Mehrannia et al., 2017; Debnath and
Dey, 2017; Cengiz and Guler, 2018), and numerical methods
2010; Keykhosropur et al., 2012; Elsawy, 2013; Almeida et al., 2013;
Choobbasti and Pichka, 2014; Hosseinpour et al., 2014; Rajesh, 2016;
Geng et al., 2016; Gu et al., 2017a, 2017b; Debnath and Dey, 2017).
Most of analytical and numerical studies used unit cell concept that
assumed infinitely wide loaded area with end-bearing stone columns
having constant diameter and spacing, where the stone column and the
surrounding soil were treated in axisymmetric conditions (Pulko et al.,
2011) and some of studies considered real 3D geometry of single or
group of encased stone columns (Keykhosropur et al., 2012;
Khabbazian et al., 2010; Geng et al., 2016; Gu et al., 2017a, 2017b;
Debnath and Dey, 2017).
Another alternative for reinforcing stone columns is the use of
horizontal geosynthetic layers studied by Madhav (1982), Sharma et al.
(2004), Ayadat et al. (2008), Wu and Hong (2008), Nguyen et al.
(2013) and Prasad and Satyanarayana (2016). Also, Latha and Murthy
(2007), Ali et al. (2012, 2014), and Hosseinpour et al. (2014) studied
the behavior of HRSCs and compared them with VESCs.
For the first time, Madhav (1982) have performed small-scale in situ
tests on HRSCs. Sharma et al. (2004), Ayadat et al. (2008) and Prasad
and Satyanarayana (2016) performed a series of tests on single HRSCs
with 60, 23 and 50 mm diameters, respectively and found that the load-
carrying capacity of HRSCs increases with increasing the number of the
horizontal reinforcing strips and decreasing the spaces between them.

∗
Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: ghazavi_ma@kntu.ac.ir (M. Ghazavi), aehsani@mail.kntu.ac.ir (A. Ehsani Yamchi), j.nazariafshar@qodsiau.ac.ir (J. Nazari Afshar).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geotexmem.2018.01.002
Received 23 August 2017; Received in revised form 29 December 2017; Accepted 31 December 2017
Available online 17 January 2018
0266-1144/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
M. Ghazavi et al. Geotextiles and Geomembranes 46 (2018) 312–318

Table 1
Properties of soil materials.

Stone column (GP) Surrounding clay (CL)

Parameters Value Parameters Value

Specific gravity 2.7 Specific gravity 2.7

Maximum dry unit weight 16.6 kN/m3 Liquid limit (%) 33
Minimum dry unit weight 14.9 kN/m3 Plastic limit (%) 20
Bulk unit weight for test at 16 kN/m3 Plasticity index (%) 13
68% relative density Optimum moisture 18
content (%)
Internal friction angle (φ) 46° Maximum dry unit 16.8 kN/m3
at 68% relative density weight
Unit weight at 28% 19 kN/m3
water content
Uniformity coefficient (Cu) 2.16 Undrained shear 15 kPa
strength
Curvature coefficient (Cc) 1.15 Compression Index 0.17
Fig. 1. Schematics of: (a) OSC; (b) VESC; (c) HRSC. Modulus of elasticity (kPa) 40000 Modulus of elasticity 900
(kPa)
Poisson's ratio 0.3 Poisson's ratio 0.45
Wu and Hong (2008) developed an analytical method by using a nor- Dilation angle 16°
malized relation between the volumetric and axial soil strains to ana-
lyze the expansion of HRSCs. Nguyen et al. (2013) studied interactions
between soil and geotextile layers by triaxial tests on sand columns, and GP, respectively. Other properties of the stone column and clay bed
with 50 mm diameter, reinforced with horizontal layers of nonwoven materials are listed in Table 1.
geotextile. They studied strain and stress patterns generated on re- The selection of reinforcement material properties is an important
inforcing geotextile sheets. They found that the peak of mobilized task in laboratory model tests with respect to the scale effect concept
tensile force occurs at the center of the reinforcing sheets and reduces to and similarity analysis rules. According to similarity analysis rules, the
approximately zero at the stone column periphery. Latha and Murthy value of the non-dimensional parameters for small scale model tests and
(2007) used three reinforcing method, viz. horizontal layers, vertical large scale site stone columns must be the same as illustrated in Eq. (1):
encasement, and randomly distributed discrete fibers for a sand column
with 38 mm diameter and 76 mm height in triaxial device. They com- ⎛⎜ Jm ⎞⎟ = ⎛ Jf ⎞
2 ⎜ 22 ⎟
pared stress–strain behavior of sand columns reinforced with horizontal ⎝ γm Dm ⎠ ⎝ γf Df ⎠ (1)
layers and vertical encasement with the equal area of reinforcement
material. Ali et al. (2012, 2014) performed tests on single stone col- where J is the reinforcement stiffness, D is the column diameter and γ is
umns with diameters 50 mm and group of stone columns with diameter the stone column material unit weight and characters m and f denote
of 30 mm for comparing the behavior of VESCs with HRSCs with var- the model and field conditions, respectively. Since the material unit
ious lengths for reinforced parts of columns. They found that the best weight of the model and field condition are very similar, it is concluded
result was achieved when the top half of the stone column length is that the tensile stiffness of reinforcing material should be reduced by
reinforced with 0.5D spacing between layers, where D is the column power two of the ratio of model size to prototype size. Reinforcement
diameter. Hosseinpour et al. (2014) conducted a numerical study to tensile stiffness for practical applications varies between 1000 and
compare VESCs with HRSCs. Their analyses show that the best con- 4000 kN/m (Ghazavi and Nazari Afshar, 2013). Therefore, in the cur-
figuration for HRSCs is using reinforcing layers in 0.25D intervals along rent research work for stone columns with 60, 80, and 100 mm dia-
the full length of the column. Furthermore, by using the same amount meters, two types of nonwoven polypropylene geotextile (GT1 and GT2
of geosynthetic material, horizontally oriented reinforcement layers can with secant stiffness of 16.36 kN/m and 35 kN/m, respectively) and one
be more effective than the vertical encasement. type of biaxial polyester geogrid (GG with secant stiffness of 250 kN/m
As mentioned, the behavior of VESCs has been paid attention in the and aperture size of 5*5 mm) were used as reinforcing material.
literature. However, there are very limited studies on HRSCs. In addi-
tion, most of previous experimental studies on HRSCs used triaxial test 2.2. Experimental setup and test procedure
device with a constant confinement pressure, or very small scale model
tests. Such tests have scale effects and the results may not simply apply The test setup consists of a large steel tank with plan dimensions of
to real scale stone columns. This paper presents results and findings of 120 cm × 120 cm and 90 cm height. The plan dimension of tank was
some large body experimental loading tests carried out on single and selected such that results of test would not be affected by boundaries of
group of stone columns with various diameters reinforced with hor- the tank. The loading mechanism is a displacement control system with
izontal sheets. The main objective of this research is to investigate the a servomotor and related drive controls. More information about the
effectiveness of horizontal reinforcement layers with various materials test setup was described by Ghazavi and Nazari Afshar (2013). The test
for stone columns with various diameters and then extending the procedure involves application of the vertical monotonic load and de-
findings of tests to large real stone columns by performing numerical termination of load-displacement behavior of the clay treated with
analyses. stone column. After installation of the stone column, the vertical load
was applied using a plate located in the center of the column and clay
2. Experimental investigation bed. The load was applied on the plate with a constant displacement
rate of 1 mm/min.
2.1. Material properties
2.3. Tests schedule
Clay, crushed stone, two types of geotextile and one type of geogrid
have been used as materials in this research. According to the Unified Totally 22 tests were performed on single stone columns and three
Soil Classification System, clay and stone materials were classified as CL tests were carried out on groups of stone columns (Table 2). Two

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Table 2 poured in the tank with measured weight in layers with 50 mm thick-
List of load tests on stone columns. ness and applying a uniform compaction effort with using a special
tamper with cylindrical shaped boots, to reach a uniform bulk unit
Test Type Test Reinforcing Diameter of stone Total
description material column number weight of 19 kN / m3 without any voids between the clay layers, up to
of tests height of 30, 40, 50 cm for stone columns with diameters of 60, 80, and
(mm) 100 mm, respectively. The inner face walls of the test box were coated
by a thin layer of grease to reduce the friction between the clay and
60 80 100
tank wall. The final surface of the clay bed was leveled and trimmed to
Single stone clay bed - 3 have a proper thickness and surface in all tests. In all tests, care was
column OSC - 3 taken to maintain water content of clay bed layers at desired level. It
HRSC (Lra = L) GT1 3 was checked that in all tests, a variation of moisture content was less
HRSC (Lr = L) GT2 3
HRSC (Lr = L) GG - 2
than 1% in the clay bed.
HRSC GT1 3
(Lr = 0.5 L) 2.5. Construction of stone columns
HRSC GT2 3
(Lr = 0.5 L)
In all tests, stone columns were constructed by replacement method
HRSC GG - 2
(Lr = 0.5 L) at the center of the test box. Thin open-ended seamless steel pipes with
outer diameters of 60, 80, and 100 mm and wall thickness of 2 mm with
Group stone clay bed - - - 1 greasy surfaces were used for stone column construction. The steel pipe
columns OSC - - - 1 was pushed into the clay to reach the bottom. The clay inside the pipe
HRSC (Lr = L) GT1 - - 1
was excavated by using helical steel augers with diameters slightly less
a
Lr = Reinforced length of the column. than the inner diameter of steel pipes. The steel pipe was completely
pulled out slightly after removing clay within the pipe. Therefore, care
different lengths were considered for reinforcement length of single was taken to prevent disturbance between the pipe and skin of the hole.
stone columns as denoted with Lr = L and Lr = 0.5 L in Table 2, for full The pre-measured quantity of stone aggregates according to bulk unit
length and half-length reinforcement of the columns, respectively (Lr weight of 16 kN / m3 was charged into the hole in layers of half column
denotes the reinforced length of stone column). The distance between diameter (0.5D) and compacted uniformly with a steel tamper. The
reinforcing layers (Sr) was taken equal to the column diameter (D) for construction sequence of HRSC was the same as OSC. However, in
all tests. For loading single stone column, a rigid steel plate with dia- HRSC tests, horizontal reinforcement sheets were placed at desired
meter of 200 mm and thickness of 30 mm was used. depths within the column length.
To study the behavior of stone columns in group, a load test was
performed on 3 stone columns located at the center of a group with 12 3. Results and discussion
columns, all with D = 60 mm and center-to-center spacing of 150 mm
(2.5 D) in a triangle configuration and a circular plate of 260 mm dia- 3.1. Deformation and failure mode
meter with 25 mm thickness was used for the plate loading (Fig. 2).
The deformed shapes OSCs after loading tests were captured by
filling paste of plaster of Paris in stone column. However, in HRSCs
2.4. Preparation of clay bed because of presence of horizontal sheets, filling the paste of plaster of
Paris was not applicable. Thus after tests, the column surrounding soft
To prepare the clay bed at first, the clay material with 28% moisture soil was carefully cut vertically to observe the deformation and failure
content corresponding to 15 kPa undrained shear strength, was pre- mode. In all tests on single stone columns, bulging failure mode gov-
pared in a large sealed box and kept for five days to achieve uniform erned at a depth of D to 2D from the stone column head. In addition, in
water content within the clayey soil mass. After five days, the clay was all single HRSC tests, bulging was failure mode but the size of bulging
was smaller than that observed in OSC tests. The failure mode in stone
column group was a combination of bulging and outward buckling of
the columns. In addition, the lateral deflection and bulging of stone
column groups were reduced in HRSC test compared with group of
OSC. Same results have been reported by Ali et al. (2014) for single and
group of HRSCs with D = 30 mm.

3.2. Load-settlement behavior

Fig. 3 illustrates the load-settlement behavior of single stone col-

umns with D = 60, 80, and 100 mm with different types of reinforce-
ment. As seen, all OSCs and HRSCs increase the ultimate load-carrying
capacity of soft soil. In addition, in all types of columns, the ultimate
capacity increases with increasing the stone column diameter. As
shown, stone columns with horizontal reinforcement offer remarkable
ultimate bearing capacity. This is due to restriction of column materials
between horizontal reinforcement layers providing additional confine-
ment due to shear stress mobilization between reinforcing sheets and
granular materials, resulting in lateral bulging reduction. Also, the ul-
timate bearing capacity of HRSCs increases with increasing the tensile
stiffness of horizontal reinforcement sheets. In addition, in HRSCs with
D = 80 and 100 mm, the use of geogrid reinforcing sheets offers greater
Fig. 2. Arrangement of group stone columns and loading plate.
bearing capacity than geotextile sheets, especially for full-length

314
M. Ghazavi et al.
Fig. 3. Variation of load-settlement of single stone columns with diameters: (a) 60 mm (b)
80 mm (c) 100 mm.
reinforced columns.
Form Fig. 3, it is obvious that for HRSCs reinforced with geogrid
layers, due to square nets of geogrid, an interlocking and passive con-
dition is created between granular material and geogrid rib thickness.
This results in greater shear resistance than the case in which horizontal
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Geotextiles and Geomembranes 46 (2018) 312–318
Fig. 4. Variation of load-settlement of group stone columns with 60 mm diameter.
geotextile reinforcing sheets are used. As a whole, geogrid layers are
more efficient in reduction of bulging and increasing the bearing ca-
pacity than geotextile sheets. Fig. 3 also illustrates that full-length re-
inforcement in HRSCs is more efficient than half-length reinforcement.
Fig. 4 shows results of tests on a group of stone columns reinforced
with geotextile 1. As seen, the group of OSC's improves load-settlement
response of reinforced soft soil. In addition, the use of group of HRSCs
offers greater ultimate bearing capacity.
3.3. Improved load ratio
To compare the efficiency of stone columns, the load ratio, L.R,
parameter is defined as the ultimate load carried by a soil reinforced
with the stone column, to the ultimate load carried by soft soil with no
stone column. Fig. 5 shows the L.R variation with settlement for various
stone columns. As seen, the L.R value varies in the range of 1.18–1.32,
1.32–1.67, and 1.48–1.86 for stone columns having diameters of 60, 80,
and 100 mm, respectively. The minimum L.R is for OSCs and the
maximum L.R is for full-length horizontal sheets of geogrid. In addition,
for HRSCs the L.R value increases with increasing the length and tensile
stiffness of reinforcement. This is because reinforcement material pro-
vides lateral confinement on the columns and reduces the amount of
bulging. Fig. 6 indicates that in all OSCs, with increasing the load up to
about 20 mm settlement, the value of L.R increases. Beyond about
20 mm settlement, the value of L.R decreases due to occurrence of
bulging and the column reaches its final strength. However, in HRSCs
with diameters of 60 and 80 mm, the value of L.R increases until the
settlement reaches 35 mm and for HRSCs with diameter of 100 mm, the
L.R value progressively increases even to 50 mm settlement. This shows
that for HRSCs, bulging and final strength state occurs at greater set-
tlements. The value of L.R increases for HRSCs with half-length re-
inforcement compared with OSCs with increasing diameters from
60 mm to 100 mm. In addition, HRSCs with geogrid offer greater L.R
value than that given by all HRSCs with geotextile. The efficiency of
geogrid reinforcing sheets increases with increasing D from 80 mm to
100 mm. As seen in Fig. 5, the full-length reinforcement with geogrid
gives the greatest L.R values.
Similar to single stone columns, the use of group stone columns
increases the ultimate load and the L.R values vary in the range of 1.42
for group of OSCs to 1.85 for full-length reinforced group of HRSCs.
4. Scale effects in experiments
For extending the results from model-scale tests to real-scale stone
columns, it is necessary to study scale effects of models in experiments.
Therefore, for studying the scale effects of model geometry and
M. Ghazavi et al.
Fig. 5. Variation of load ratio (L.R) versus settlement for various stone columns with
diameters: (a) 60 mm (b) 80 mm (c) 100 mm.
reinforcing material stiffness (J), some selected results of experimental
tests are compared with results of FEM analysis carried out using
PLAXIS software (hereafter referred to as the “program”. The properties
of clay, stone column and geotextile materials used in this research tests
and FEM analysis are shown in Table 1.
In the FEM analysis, an axisymmetric geometry with real
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Geotextiles and Geomembranes 46 (2018) 312–318
Fig. 6. Validation of program predictions for tests performed in current research.
experimental tests dimensions and boundary conditions was modeled
using 6-noded triangular elements for soil materials and 3-noded geo-
grid elements for reinforcement materials. The Mohr-Coulomb (MC)
failure criterion was used for the clay and stone column materials and
linear-elastic behavior was used for the reinforcing materials. To allow
mobilization between reinforcement layers and stone column material,
interface elements were used. According to program reference manual,
an interface ratio of 0.67 was used for the interface between re-
inforcement and stone column material. Khabbazian et al. (2010) also
used this value for the coefficient of sliding friction between the geo-
synthetic and the granular column material. All analyses were per-
formed by applying displacement increments using prescribed dis-
placement method to simulate the rigid footing condition on top of the
column as used in tests. To remove the effects of element size and
boundary conditions in the numerical analysis, sufficiently extended
boundaries with fine mesh discretization were considered. In all FEM
models, the initial in-situ conditions were modeled for simulation the
initial ground conditions. Then, the analyses proceeded by the re-
moving the hole and replacing the columns materials and applying the
displacement increments to simulate the rigid footing condition on top
of the column.
Fig. 6 compares load-settlement behavior, obtained from the current
FEM analyses and test results for tests with the column's diameter of
100 mm. As seen, there is a good agreement between the tests and finite
element analysis predictions.
To investigate the effect of stone column diameter, reinforcement
stiffness and interval space of horizontal reinforcement layers on the
bearing capacity of HRSCs, numerical analysis was carried out on stone
columns with L/D = 5. In all analyses, the diameter of prescribed dis-
placement was constant and equal to 200 mm. Three different dia-
meters of 60, 80 and 100 cm were used for large scale stone columns.
Also, four stiffness values (J = 35, 250, 1000 and 5000 kN/m) for re-
inforcement were used in numerical analyses. Such values were used by
others (Murugesan and Rajagopal, 2006; Ghazavi and Nazari Afshar,
2013; Hosseinpour et al., 2014) for VSCs and HRSCs. In addition, three
values of D, 0.5D and 0.25D for spacing between horizontal reinforcing
sheets were considered. In all analyses, full reinforcement for column
lengths was considered.
To clarify the effect of reinforcement on the bearing capacity of
HRSCs, a new parameter is defined as R. I . F = L. R (HRSC ) / L. R (OSC )
where R.I.F is reinforcement improvement factor, L. R (HRSC ) is the load
ratio of HRSC, and L. R (OSC ) is load ratio of OSC with the same diameter.
The L.R values include both column diameter and reinforcing effects.
However, R.I.F values only include the reinforcing effects. Therefore,
R.I.F can better reflect the reinforcement improvement effect than L.R.
Table 3 presents L.R and R.I.F values obtained from numerical
analyses with various D, J, and Sr values at s/D = 0.5 where s is the
M. Ghazavi et al. Geotextiles and Geomembranes 46 (2018) 312–318

Table 3
Influence of stone column diameter, reinforcement stiffness and space between reinforcing sheets on L.R and R.I.F values of large-scale stone columns, determined from numerical
analyses.

Stiffness of Reinforcement Vertical space between reinforcing sheets L.R R.I.F

J (kN/m) (Sr)
Stone column diameter (cm) Stone column diameter (cm)

60 80 100 60 80 100

OSC – 1.36 1.51 1.76 – – –

35 D 1.41 1.57 1.82 1.04 1.04 1.03

0.5D 1.46 1.61 1.88 1.07 1.07 1.07
0.25D 1.56 1.72 2.09 1.15 1.14 1.19

250 D 1.57 1.76 2.05 1.15 1.17 1.16

0.5D 1.89 2.09 2.41 1.39 1.38 1.37
0.25D 2.45 2.69 3.04 1.80 1.78 1.73

1000 D 1.71 2.00 2.39 1.26 1.32 1.36

0.5D 2.71 3.04 3.53 1.99 2.01 2.01
0.25D 4.08 4.71 5.55 3.00 3.12 3.15

5000 D 1.80 2.24 2.75 1.32 1.48 1.56

0.5D 4.09 5.04 5.95 3.01 3.34 3.38
0.25D 6.29 7.88 9.72 4.63 5.22 5.52

settlement of the rigid footing. As seen, the L.R values for HRSCs with
Sr = D and J = 35 kN/m have a good agreement with L.R obtained
from tests on small-scale tests. Therefore, the results of small-scale tests
may be extended to study the performance of real scale HRSCs. Both
values of L.R and R.I.F increase with decreasing Sr from D to 0.25D and
also with increasing reinforcement stiffness. For example, for a HRSC
with D = 100 cm and J = 5000 kN/m, R.I.F value increases from 1.52
for Sr = D, to 5.52 for Sr = 0.25D. Also for a HRSC with D = 100 cm
and Sr = 0.25D, R.I.F value increases from 3.15 for J = 1000 kN/m to
5.52 for J = 5000 kN/m. In addition, for the practical range of re-
inforcement stiffness, the R.I.F value of HRSCs slightly increases with
increasing the column diameter, as observed previously in experimental
tests for small scale model tests. As seen, the main effective parameter
on the bearing capacity of HRSCs is Sr and stiffness. In fact, by reducing
the distance between reinforcing layers, more frictional and inter-
locking interactions occur between stone column materials and re-
inforcement material. Therefore, stone column aggregates cannot easily
move in lateral directions. However, when Sr increases to about D,
stone column materials can move laterally, leading to bulging failure.
When Sr becomes greater than D to 2D, the reinforced stone column
behaves like an unreinforced column for which the bulging failure oc-
curs at a depth of about D to 2D from the OSC head.
5. Comparison of HRSCs and VESCs
Results of experimental and numerical studies show that the benefit
of horizontal reinforcing layers increases with increasing column dia-
meters due to providing greater interactive shear mobilization at the
top and bottom surfaces of reinforcing layers with aggregate materials
in columns with larger diameters (Table 3). However, for the VESCs,
Murugesan and Rajagopal (2010) and Castro and Sagaseta (2011) re-
ported that the benefit of vertical encasement decreases with increasing
the diameter of the VESCs. In fact, the load transfer mechanism from
the soil to the reinforcing layers in the HRSCs occurs by frictional
surfaces from the column center to its periphery and may be amplified
by interactive passive effects of reinforcement ribs in geogrid-type re-
inforcing sheets. Therefore, with increasing the column diameter, the
area of top and bottom surfaces between the reinforcement and column
grains increases, leads to increase the effectiveness of the horizontal
reinforcing layers with increasing the column diameter. However, the
main function of the encasement in the VESCs, is the hoop tension that
decreases due to increasing the column diameter.
From practical viewpoint, locating horizontal reinforcement layers
in HRSCs may not be difficult and reinforcement layers can be installed
with the progress of the column construction at desired depths.
However, care must be taken to install reinforcement layers horizon-
tally construction procedure. Also, this type of reinforcement may be
produced easily by the manufactures with desired diameters. However,
producing the same encasement diameter with proper stiffness and
strength may be difficult and only a few manufactures may be able to
produce.
6. Conclusions
Results of HRSCs with different reinforcing material were compared
with those obtained from tests on OSCs. Finally, the effect of re-
inforcement stiffness and interval spacing between reinforcement layers
on the bearing capacity of HRSCs were studied experimentally and
numerically. Based on results of experiments and numerical analyses,
the following concluding remarks may be mentioned:
1 The dominant failure mode for single OSCs is the bulging failure that
usually occurs at a depth of D to 2D from top of the stone column.
However, in single HRSCs, limited bulging occurs in column mate-
rials between the reinforcing layers. By decreasing the vertical space
between reinforcing layers, limited bulging occurs approximately
equal in total length of the HRSCs.
2 The lateral bulging amount decreases in HRSCs compared with OSCs
due to additional support provided by frictional and interlocking
interactions between geosynthetic material and stone column ag-
gregates.
3 The ultimate bearing capacity and stiffness of OSCs can further in-
crease by the use of horizontal reinforcing geosynthetic materials.
4 Tests on group of stone columns have shown that the ultimate ca-
pacity of HRSCs is greater than that of group of OSCs. The failure
mode in stone column group is a combination of bulging and
buckling due to general shear failure.
5 In HRSCs, with increasing the stiffness of horizontal reinforcing
sheets, increasing length of reinforced part of the columns, and
decreasing interval spaces between reinforcement layers, the ulti-
mate capacity and stiffness of stone columns increase. Vertical
spacing between horizontal layers has a dominant effect on the load-
settlement behavior of HRSCs.
6 The use of geogrid sheets in a HRSC offers more bearing capacity

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M. Ghazavi et al.
and stiffness than geotextile due to better interaction and passive
force exerted on geogrid ribs resulting from aggregate movements.
7 The benefit of encasement decreases with increasing the stone
column diameter in VESCs, whereas it increases with increasing the
diameter column in HRSCs.
8 The best vertical spacing between subsequent reinforcing sheets in
HRSCs is Sr = 0.25D.
9 Comparing the totally encased stone column with HRSC with
Sr = 0.25D, showed that by using an equal area of reinforcement
materials, the bearing capacity of HRSCs is up to 30% greater than
VESCs. In addition, the maximum tensile forces created in HRSCs
are smaller than those in VESCs.
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umns with different geosynthetic reinforcement arrangement. Geosynth. Int. 21 (2),
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