Is the technique of geosynthetic-encased stone columns in soft clay applicable really? And is it possible to make geosynthetic around a stone column technically?
There are more than twenty successful application of gesynthetic encased granular (sand/stone) column in Europe.
Please have a look at the below articles:
1. Raithel, M., Kempfert, H. G. and Kirchner, A. (2002) Geotextile-encased columns (GEC) for foundation of a dike on very soft soils. Proceedings 7th ICG International Conference on Geosynthetics, Nice, France,1025-1028.
2. Raithel, M., Kirchner, A., Schade, C. and Leusink, E. (2005) Foundation of Constructions on Very Soft Soils with Geotextile Encased Columns—State of the Art. Geotechnical Special Publication, No. 130-142, 1867– 1877.
3. Araujo, G. L. S., Palmeira, E. M. and Cunha, R. P. (2009). Behaviour of geosynthetic encased granular columns in porous collapsible soil. Geosynthetics International, 16(6), 433–451.
4. Yoo, C. and Lee, D. (2012) Performance of geogrid-encased stone columns in soft ground: full-scale load tests. Geosynthetics International, 19(4), 480–490.
in Recommendations for Design and Analysis of Earth Structures using Geosynthetic Reinforcements EBGEO 2010 you will find (chapter 10) design recommendations as well as Worked Example of Geotextile-encased Columns.
In Poland there was quite big realization using GEC system Please find the article of PhD Janusz Sobolewski from Huesker. There is a lot of articles of that type with his participation mainly in German and Polish e.g. Embankment of the A2 motorway founded on geosynthetic encased sand columns. or Brokemper, D., Sobolewski, J., Alexiew, D., Brok, C.: Design and construction of geotextile encased columns supporting geogrid reinforced landscape embankments. Bastions Vijfwal Houten in the Netherlands, Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Geosynthetics, Yokohama 2008, Vol. 3. 889-892.
1.Almeida, M.S.S., Hosseinpour, I., Riccio, M., and Alexiew, D. (2015). “Behavior of Geotextile-Encased Granular Columns Supporting Test Embankment on Soft Deposit.” Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenvironmental Engineering, 141(3), 04014116.
2.Mohapatra, S.R., Rajagopal, K., and Sharma, J. S. (2016). “Large direct shear load test on geosynthetic encased granular columns.” Geotextiles and Geomembranes 44(3), 396-405.