Geotextiles and Geomembranes xxx (2015) 1e8

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Geotextiles and Geomembranes

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

Failure mechanism of geosynthetic-encased stone columns in soft

soils under embankment
Jian-Feng Chen a, Liang-Yong Li a, Jian-Feng Xue a, b, *, Shou-Zhong Feng a, c
a
Department of Geotechnical Engineering, School of Civil Engineering, Tongji University, 1239 Siping Road, Shanghai 200092, China
b
Geotechnical and Hydrogeological Engineering Research Group (GHERG), Federation University Australia, Victoria 3842, Australia
c
Wuhan Guangyi Transportation Science and Technology Co., Ltd, Wuhan 430074, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: The reaction of geosynthetic-encased stone columns (GECs) in soft soils under embankment loading was
Received 6 December 2014 modeled with an indoor physical model test and numerical models using three dimensional and two
Received in revised form dimensional nite element methods. The experimental and three dimensional numerical modeling re-
20 April 2015
sults showed that the failure of the GECs is caused by the bending of the columns rather than shear.
Accepted 24 April 2015
Available online xxx
Three dimensional nite element analysis showed that the distribution of unbalanced lateral loading
acting on the columns is symmetric about a hinge point above the plastic hinge, rather than triangle or
uniform distribution. An equivalent shear resistance model of the GECs is proposed based on the dis-
Keywords:
Geosynthetic-encased stone column
tribution of the unbalanced lateral loadings on the wall. The stability of the embankment was analyzed in
Soft soil two dimensional nite element method by transforming the columns into equivalent soil walls using
Bending failure equivalent bending resistance and equivalent shear resistance methods. It was found that results from
Unbalanced lateral loading equivalent bending resistance method is closer to the estimations from the three dimensional analysis,
which agrees with the bending failure mechanism of the GECs. It is suggested that one more row of such
columns may be required to provide higher lateral resistance in the soils in front of the toe to improve
the stability of the embankment.
2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Stone columns have been more widely used as a cost and energy
efcient, and environmental friendly method for soft soil treat-
ment. For situations when the undrained shear strength of soil is
too weak, stone columns may lose their effectiveness as the sur-
rounding weak soils may not provide enough connement to the
columns, which may result in bulging or crushing failure of the
columns at the upper section of the columns (Hughes et al., 1975).
In that case, geosynthetic (i.e. geotextile or geogrid) encased stone
columns (GECs) overcome the shortcomings and provide lateral
connement to the stone materials to improve the bearing capacity
of the soils (Raithel et al., 2005; Yoo, 2010; Zhang et al., 2012; Dash
and Bora, 2013; Elsawy, 2013; Wu and Hong, 2014).
The columns, such as sand compaction columns, stone columns,
and deep mixed columns, can fail due to bending, sliding, rotation,
shearing, tension, or a combination of the failure modes under
* Corresponding author. Tel.: 61 3 51226448.
E-mail address: jianfen.xue@federation.edu.au (J.-F. Xue).
embankment load (Kivelo and Broms, 1999; Han et al., 2005;
Kitazume and Maruyama, 2006, 2007; Han, 2012; Zhang et al.,
2014). Shear failure is the most common failure mode for sand
compaction and stone columns (Abusharar and Han, 2011). Han
et al. (2005) found that rotational failure of deep mixed columns
is dominant under road embankment based on the ndings from
numerical analysis. Through centrifuge tests, Kitazume and
Maruyama (2006, 2007) found that the deep mixed columns
could fail under bending. They indicated that the area replacement
ratio of deep mixed columns inuences the bending failure
signicantly and sliding failure might happen to shorter columns.
Based on numerical modeling results, Zheng et al. (2010) suggested
that rigid columns (e.g. concrete piles) are more prone to bending
failure rather than shear failure under embankment loading.
However, there is very limited literature on the failure mode of
GECs under embankment load. This paper evaluates the stability of
a road embankment built on GECs reinforced soils using laboratory
testing, and three dimensional and two dimensional nite element
analyses. The performance and failure mode of the encased stone
columns under embankment loading are extensively studied.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geotexmem.2015.04.016
0266-1144/ 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Please cite this article in press as: Chen, J.-F., et al., Failure mechanism of geosynthetic-encased stone columns in soft soils under embankment,
Geotextiles and Geomembranes (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geotexmem.2015.04.016
2 J.-F. Chen et al. / Geotextiles and Geomembranes xxx (2015) 1e8
2. Laboratory testing
The authors carried out a test on geotextile-encased stone col-
umn reinforced soft soils. The model was built in a
1200 mm  400 mm  800 mm (length  width  height) tank as
shown in Fig. 1 to simulate a 3.5 m high embankment at a scale of
1:25 (model size to full size). The full size embankment will be
modeled with nite element method in the later sections. Kaolin
was mixed to the water content of 100%, which is well above the
liquid limit (54.2%), to make the 400 mm thick of foundation soil. A
standard medium sand from Pingtan island in the eastern China
Sea, Fujian Province, China was used in the test for sand cushion.
The sand has been widely used in China for research purpose (Zhou
et al., 2012). The sand used in the test is well graded with mean size
of 0.34 mm and coefcient of uniformity of 1.542. The sand was
compacted to the density of 15.3 kN/m3 to construct the 50 mm
thick sand cushion between the embankment and the foundation
soil. The friction angle of the sand was about 27.3 based on direct
shear tests at the dry density of 15.6 kN/m3. Silica sand with di-
ameters ranging from 2 to 4 mm was compacted to the density of
17.2 kN/m3 to construct the stone columns. The mean size of the
silica sand was 2.64 mm, and the coefcient of uniformity was
1.861. The friction angle of the silica sand was 36.7. Non-woven
geotextile was used to encase the silica sand. The tensile strength
of the geotextile was 0.42 kN/m based on tensile tests on six
20 mm  20 mm samples. The stiffness of the geotextile was 4.0 kN/
m at 5% tensile strain. Steel weights were used to construct the
embankment. The weight was 380 g each, with the dimension of
5 cm  5 cm  2 cm (length  width  thickness).
The Kaolin slurry was poured into the tank and consolidated for
two weeks under the self-weight with double side drainage, and
the drains were remaining closed during the rest of the test. After
consolidation, the undrained shear strength of the soil was ob-
tained at 5.2 kPa using a miniature cone penetrometer developed
Fig. 1. Dimensions of the laboratory model embankment on GECs reinforced soft soils
(units are in mm): (a) section view; (b) plan view.
Please cite this article in press as: Chen, J.-F., et al., Failure mechanism of geosynthetic-encased stone columns in soft soils under embankment,
Geotextiles and Geomembranes (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geotexmem.2015.04.016
by Chen et al. (2012). The layout of the GECs is shown in Fig. 1. To
construct the sand columns, a 32 mm outer diameter steel pipe
with 0.4 mm wall thick was driven into the soil and an auger
extruder was used to remove the soil in the pipe. The non-woven
geotextile was sewn to form a 32 mm diameter and 400 mm long
tube, and placed into the steel pipe to form the geotextile casing.
Silica sand was poured into the casing and compacted in layers of
50 mm to the designed density (17.2 kN/m3). After constructing the
sand column, the steel pipe was carefully pulled out. Two pie-
zometers (K1 and K2) were installed below the middle section of the
embankment to the depth of 200 mm as shown in Fig. 1(a) and (b)
to monitor excess pore water pressure dissipation during
construction.
The embankment was constructed using steel weights in three
stages (stages 1e3) as shown in Fig. 2. The embankment was con-
structed in three stages using steel weights. Each loading stage was
10 min (time to place the weights) followed by a resting period for
the dissipation of excess pore water pressure, which is about of
30e40 min based on the monitored data from piezometers shown
in Fig. 3. After the construction of the embankment, sand bags with
equivalent pressure of 21 kPa were applied on the embankment
surface to fail the structure (stage 4 in Fig. 2). The deformation of
the ground before the last loading stage is shown in Fig. 4. The
shape of the deformed ground shows that large settlement has
occurred below the embankment, with heave in the soils in front of
the toe. The largest curvature of the deformed ground contour is
located below the toe of the embankment, where is also the last
column located.
After removing the weights, the soils were left for 2 weeks with
the drains open to solidify the Kaolin for excavation. After the
excavation, it was found that the columns were bended, with the
largest deection been observed in the column at the toe of the
embankment as shown in Fig. 5, and the closer to the centerline of
the embankment, the less the deection in the columns. This agrees
with the ground contour shown in Fig. 4. The deformation of the
columns shows that bending failure occurred in the columns near
the toe.
3. Three dimensional nite element model
The physical model tested in the laboratory is relatively small in
size, therefore the stress level encountered in situ and the stress
variations in the stone columns and geotextiles during the test
cannot be fully studied. To further investigate the reaction of the
GECs under road embankment, a 3.5 m high road embankment
with 10 m wide on top was simulated with a three dimensional
nite element code Z_Soil developed by the Swiss Federal Institute
of Technology. The software has been used with great success in
forensic analysis and designs (Truty et al., 2008). The side slope of
the embankment is 35 . The thickness of the underneath soft soil is
10 m with the groundwater table located at ground surface. The
encased stone columns are 10 m long and 0.8 m in diameter, which
are installed at square pattern with center to center spacing of
2.5 m. A 1.25 m road section was simulated in the three dimen-
sional model to consider the symmetrical structure as shown in
Fig. 6. The material properties are shown in Table 1. The soils are
modeled with Mohr Coulomb model and the geotextiles was
simulated with isotropic linearly elastic perfectly plastic membrane
materials embedded in the Z_Soil software. The geotextile has a
tensile stiffness of 2000 kN/m, Poisson's ratio of 0.3 and tensile
strength of 70 kN/m. The soft soil and geotextile interface was
modeled with linear elastic-perfectly plastic interface model. The
interface coefcient was 0.7 in the analysis.
Fig. 6 shows the nite element mesh used in the analysis. The
mesh consists of 6132 elements. Impermeable boundary conditions
 J.-F. Chen et al. / Geotextiles and Geomembranes xxx (2015) 1e8 3

Fig. 2. Loading stages (each cell represents one steel weight).

Fig. 3. Dissipation of excess pore water pressure during construction.

Fig. 6. The numerical model of the GECs-supported embankment (units are in me-
ters): (a) three dimensional view; (b) top view.

loading period of 30 days and resting period of 50 days after the

loading.
Fig. 4. The deformation in the soils before the last loading stage.

4. Results from three dimensional nite element analysis

were applied at the bottom and sides of the model. Horizontal and
vertical xities were applied to the bottom boundary, with hori-
zontal xity on lateral boundaries. The embankment was built
using stage construction method (continuous linear), with a
4.1. Lateral deection of and stresses in the columns and geotextiles
The lateral displacements of the centerline of the columns at the
end of the construction period, e.g. the 30th day, were plotted in
Fig. 7. The displacement curves clearly show the bending of the
columns. The location of the largest curvature of the bended col-
umns is deeper in the columns near the toe. It can be seen that the
largest displacement was observed at the head of the outmost
column, e.g. the column below the toe of the embankment, with

Table 1
Material properties used in the three dimensional model.

Parameter Embankment ll Soft soil Stone column

Unit weight g (kN/m3) 20 17 22

Young's Modulus/E (kPa) 20,000 3000 40,000
Cohesion/c0 (kPa) 0.5 1 0.5
Friction angle/f0 ( ) 30 15 38
Dilation angle/j ( ) 10 0 10
Poisson's ratio 0.3 0.3 0.3
Permeability/k (106 m/s) 50 2.3e3 120
Fig. 5. The deection of the GECs after the tests.

Please cite this article in press as: Chen, J.-F., et al., Failure mechanism of geosynthetic-encased stone columns in soft soils under embankment,
Geotextiles and Geomembranes (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geotexmem.2015.04.016
4 J.-F. Chen et al. / Geotextiles and Geomembranes xxx (2015) 1e8
Fig. 7. Deections of the GECs at the end of construction period.
deections of the columns reduce as the columns getting closer to
the centerline of the embankment. The columns remain almost
straight at greater depth, e.g. deeper than 5 m, for all the columns
with slightly tilting.
The tensile stresses in the geotextiles are shown in Fig. 8. It can
be seen that large tensile stresses have been generated in the
geotextiles in columns 3 and 4, with the largest value very close to
its tensile strength, which may result in the tensile failure of the
geotextiles. The axial stresses in the stone columns at the end of
construction period are presented in Fig. 9. It can be seen that on
the tension side the axial stresses in column 3 and 4 are nearly zero
near the plastic hinge, where the largest bending moment located.
The axial stresses in column 3 are greater than those in column 4, as
the column 3 is located below the shoulder of the embankment
with higher load levels.
4.2. Lateral loading, shear force and bending moment diagrams of
the columns
The net lateral loading diagrams of the columns were plotted in
Fig. 10 by integrating the normal stresses acting on the shafts. The
gure shows that the columns acted as lateral loaded exible piles,
especially the ones near the toes where lateral displacement of the
Fig. 8. Tensile stress in the geotextiles at the end of construction period.
Please cite this article in press as: Chen, J.-F., et al., Failure mechanism of geosynthetic-encased stone columns in soft soils under embankment,
Geotextiles and Geomembranes (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geotexmem.2015.04.016
Fig. 9. Axial stresses in the GECs at the end of construction period.
embankment and foundation soil is large. Fig. 10 shows that the net
lateral loading acting on the columns is not zero at the head of the
columns. The loading decreases with the depth to the hinge point
at the depth of 1.2 m below the head of the columns, where the
lateral loading is zero, then the direction of loading changes and the
values increase to their maximum values at the depth of around
2.8 m below the head of the columns. The loading distribution
between the head and the maximum values is almost symmetric
about the hinge point.
By integrating the net lateral loading diagrams, the shear force
and bending moment diagrams can be obtained as shown in Fig. 11
and Fig. 12. It can be seen that large shear forces and bending
moments have been generated in columns 3 and 4. There is a
change of shear force direction in the columns at the depth of 3 m
where the maximum bending moment occurs. It seems that the
locations of the maximum shear forces in the columns differ in the
columns. For example, the maximum shear force in column 3 is
located 1.6 m below the column head, while in column 2 is located
2 m below the column head. This may be due to the variation of
stress levels in the soils below the embankment and the shape and
location of the slip surface as shown later.
Fig. 10. Net lateral loading acting on the GEC shafts at the end of construction period.
 J.-F. Chen et al. / Geotextiles and Geomembranes xxx (2015) 1e8
Fig. 11. Shear force diagram of the GECs.
Fig. 12 shows that the location of the maximum bending
moment in each column differs, with the deepest location observed
in column 4. This is due to the fact that during sliding of the
embankment, slip surface may passes through the columns at
different locations, which results in the different degree of bending
of the columns. The location of the maximum curvature in a column
is affected by the depth of slip surface as shown in later sections.
The maximum bending moment and shear force in column 3 is
nearly 30% greater than the values in column 4 even the lateral
deection in column 4 is larger. This is due to the fact that the
vertical stresses acting on column 3 is much larger than that those
on column 4 as shown in Fig. 9, which results in less bending
moment in columns 3.
4.3. Equivalent shear capacity of the columns
At bending failure, Kitazume et al. (2000) assumed that the
unbalanced lateral loading acting on the stone columns increases
linearly with depth above the plastic hinge (Fig. 13(a)). The equiv-
alent shear capacity (Pu) of the stone columns can be calculated
using:
Pu 3Mu =hH
in which Mu is the bending capacity of the column; hH is the dis-
tance from the top of the column to the location of the plastic hinge,
where the maximum bending moment is located.
Fig. 12. Bending moment diagram of the GECs.
Please cite this article in press as: Chen, J.-F., et al., Failure mechanism of geosynthetic-encased stone columns in soft soils under embankment,
Geotextiles and Geomembranes (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geotexmem.2015.04.016
5
Fig. 13. Lateral loading acting on the columns: (a) Kitazume et al. (2000) method; (b)
Broms (2001) method; (c) assumption used in this paper.
Broms (2001) suggested uniformly distributed unbalanced
lateral loading on piles or stone columns (Fig. 13(b)), then the
equivalent shear capacity of the stone columns can be calculated
using:
Pu 2Mu =hH (2)
From Fig. 10, we can see that the lateral loading acting on the
GECs does not follow the assumptions by Broms (2001) and
Kitazume et al. (2000). As shown in Fig. 10, in the GECs, above the
plastic hinge, the shear loading is almost symmetric about the
hinge point. The loading distribution can be assumed as the form
shown in Fig. 13(c). Based on the assumption shown in the gure,
the equivalent shear capacity of the GECs can be calculated using:
Pu 1:5Mu =hH (3)
This value is much lower than the values suggested by Broms
(2001) and Kitazume et al. (2000) for the same Mu. Further tests
need to be done to validate this assumption: such as measuring the
inclination of stone columns in centrifuge or in-situ tests under
(1) embankment loading.
4.4. Factor of safety and critical slip surface
The stability of the embankment was analyzed using strength
reduction method. In the method, the factor of safety (FS) of a soil
structure is obtained by reducing the strength parameters of the
soils:
c tan f
FS (4)
cr tan fr
where c and f are the input cohesion and friction angle, respec-
tively; cr and fr are the reduced cohesion and friction angle,
respectively.
The factor of safety of the embankment was analyzed using the
strength reduction method built in Z_Soil. The calculated factor of
safety is just 1.0, which suggests that the embankment is at limit
state. The simulated slip surface is shown in Fig. 14. It can be seen
that the moved soil body in the sliding zone caused the bending of
the stone columns. The variation of the slip surface depth results in
different degrees of bending of the stone columns, which may have
caused the variation of the locations of the maximum bending
moment in the stone columns as discussed earlier.
6 J.-F. Chen et al. / Geotextiles and Geomembranes xxx (2015) 1e8
5. Two dimensional nite element analysis
Two dimensional nite element analysis is commonly used in
practice for its simplicity comparing to three dimensional nite
element analysis. Three dimensional column-supported
embankment can be converted into an equivalent plane strain
problem using the column-wall method or the equivalent area
method (Christoulas et al., 1997; Cooper and Rose, 1999; Tan
et al., 2008; Abusharar and Han, 2011). Zhang et al. (2014)
compared the stability of an embankment reinforced with
stone columns by using above two conversion techniques and
found that, using the column-wall method normally gives lower
factor of safety for short term stability, but for long term stability
the results from the two methods are quite comparable. The
main shortcoming of equivalent area method is that stress
concentration near the columns cannot be simulated; therefore
for short term stability, a reduction factor should be applied to
the factor of safety obtained from equivalent area method as
recommended by Zhang et al. (2014). In the following analysis
the reinforced soils were converted into column-walls using
equivalent shear resistance method and equivalent bending
resistance method.
5.1. Equivalent parameters of the column walls
The soil parameters in the equivalent walls are estimated using
the weighted average strength parameters of the columns and the
soft soil (Terashi et al., 1991; Cooper and Rose, 1999):
cw Aw cce Ac cs As
tan fw Aw tan fce Ac tan fs As
Ew Aw Ece Ac Es As
gw Aw gce Ac gs As
in which cw, fw, Ew and gw are the equivalent cohesion, friction
angle, Young's modulus and unit weight of the equivalent wall,
respectively; cce, fce, Ece and gce are the apparent cohesion, friction
angle, Young's modulus and unit weight of the encased stone col-
umn, respectively; cs, fs, Es and gs are the cohesion, friction angle,
Young's modulus and unit weight of the soft soil, respectively; Aw,
Ac and As are the areas of the equivalent wall, the encased stone
column and the soil, respectively.
Fig. 14. Critical slip surface predicted using the three dimensional nite element model.
Please cite this article in press as: Chen, J.-F., et al., Failure mechanism of geosynthetic-encased stone columns in soft soils under embankment,
Geotextiles and Geomembranes (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geotexmem.2015.04.016
5.2. Apparent cohesion of geotextile encased stone column
The inclusion of geotextile around the stone columns contrib-
utes to the apparent cohesion (cce) of the encased stone columns
(Malarvizhi and Ilamparuthi., 2008):
s1g s3g
cce tan 45  fc =2 tan 45 fc =2 (9)
2 2
where:
pDEg 1 
s1g (10)
A0
2Eg c
s3g (11)
D 1 
In the equations, s1g is the increase in strength due to the
compression shell effect; s3g is the increase in strength due to hoop
tension; Eg is the Young's modulus of the geosysthetics; fc is the
friction angle of the stones; and c are the vertical and circum-
ferential strain of the stone column, respectively; D and D are the
initial diameter and diameter of the column at the axial strain of ,
respectively.
To obtain the apparent cohesion of the encased stone columns
using Equation (9), the circumference strain induced by axial strain
of the stone columns should be determined. Frikhan et al. (2015)
carried out tri-axial tests on soft soil reinforced with sand col-
umns and found that deviator stresses in the samples stabilize at
the axial strain level of 6e10%. Malarvizhi and Ilamparuthi (2008)
compared the results from numerical and experimental tests on
(5) geogrid encased stone columns, and found that using 10% of axial
strain gives the best comparison. In this study, a three dimensional
(6) numerical model of a geotextile-encased stone column with 0.8 m
in diameter and 1.6 m in length was built to simulate tri-axial tests
(7) of the encased stone columns. The circumferential strain obtained
is 4.8% at the 10% axial strain. By adopting these values, the
(8) apparent cohesion of the encased stone column was obtained as
472 kPa using Equations (9)e(11). The friction angle of the encased
column is assumed to be equal to the friction angle of the stones fc.
5.3. Equivalent modulus and Poisson's ratio of encased stone
columns
The equivalent compressive modulus (Ece) and Poisson's ratio
(mce) of the encased stone columns can be calculated using the
following equations (Zhou et al. 1998):
 J.-F. Chen et al. / Geotextiles and Geomembranes xxx (2015) 1e8 7

Table 2
Material properties of the equivalent soil wall used in the two dimensional model.

Equivalent parameter Equivalent bending resistance method Equivalent shear resistance method

Unit weight (kN/m3) 18.5 18.3

Young's Modulus (kPa) 14,300 12,300
Poisson's ratio 0.28 0.28
Cohesion (kPa) 144.8 118.8
Friction angle ( ) 23 21.6

.h  i 5.4. Properties of the equivalent walls

Ece 1 b1  mc  1 b 1  mc  2m2c (12)
The GECs reinforced soil zone was converted to equivalent walls
.h  i using above mentioned methods by considering equivalent shear
mce mc 1 b 1  mc  2m2c (13) resistance and bending resistance. In the equivalent shear resistant
method, the soil and stone columns are converted into soil walls
in which: with equivalent shear resistance using Equations (5)e(8). In the
equivalent bending moment method, the soil and stone columns
Eg are converted into soil walls with thickness of b with equivalent
b (14)
rEc bending moment:

where r is the radius of the encased stone columns, Eg is the tensile

1 1
modulus of geosynthetics, Ec is the Young's modulus of the stones, D tb3 pD4 (15)
mc is the Poisson's ratio of the stones. By using the values listed in 12 64
Table 1, we obtained Ece 1.02Ec, and mce 0.94mc.

Fig. 15. Displacement of the embankment with the soil of: (a) equivalent bending resistance; (b) equivalent shear resistance.

Please cite this article in press as: Chen, J.-F., et al., Failure mechanism of geosynthetic-encased stone columns in soft soils under embankment,
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8 J.-F. Chen et al. / Geotextiles and Geomembranes xxx (2015) 1e8
in which D is the diameter of the encased column and t is the
spacing between the columns. Then the area of the equivalent wall
is:
Aw D tb (16)
By using the equations, the encased stone columns were
translated into equivalent walls with the width of the 0.8 m using
equivalent shear resistance method and 0.459 m using equivalent
bending resistance method. The parameters of the equivalent soil
walls for the two methods are shown in Table 2.
5.5. Failure mechanism in two dimensional analysis
The stability of the embankment was analyzed using strength
reduction method in the two dimensional nite element method
using Z_Soil. For the embankment with the soil of equivalent
bending resistance, the factor of safety obtained was 1.01, and for
the embankment with the soil of equivalent shear resistance, the
factor of safety obtained was 1.11. The critical slip surfaces with two
different equivalent materials are shown in Fig. 15(a) and (b). There
is not much difference in the critical slip surfaces predicted from
the two methods. Based on the factor of safety obtained, it seems
that the results from the equivalent bending resistance method are
more comparable with the ones from three dimensional analysis
for this case.
6. Conclusions
A physical model test was carried out on a model embankment
built on geotextile-encased silica sand reinforced soft soil to
investigate the failure mechanism of GECs under road embank-
ment. A numerical model embankment built on geotextile encased
stone column improved soft soil ground was analyzed using three
dimensional and two dimensional nite element software Z_Soil.
The reaction of the GECs was extensively studied using the three
dimensional nite element code. In the two dimensional analysis,
the reinforced soil zone was modeled with equivalent soil walls
using equivalent bending resistance method and equivalent shear
resistance method. Based on the ndings from the physical and
numerical models, the following conclusions and recommenda-
tions have been made.
1. Bending failure is the main failure mode in the geosynthetic-
encased columns under embankment loading. The bending of
the columns was caused by sliding of the embankment and the
foundation soil, and the unbalanced lateral loading acting on the
columns.
2. Three dimensional nite element analysis showed that the net
lateral loading acting on the columns above the plastic hinge is
neither triangle nor uniformed distributed as assumed by
Kitazume et al. (2000) and Broms (2001). The lateral stresses
decreases from the head of the columns to zero at the hinge
point where the lateral stress is zero, and maximize at the
plastic hinge where the bending moment is the largest. The
lateral stresses above the plastic hinge are most likely sym-
metric about the hinge point.
3. The bending moment and shear force diagrams in the columns
showed that failure initiates in the columns at the edge of the
slope due to the least lateral resistance in the columns. From this
point of view, one more row of columns outside of the slope is
necessary to increase the lateral resistance of the soils in front of
the embankment toe.
4. In two dimensional nite element analysis using equivalent soil
wall method, the factor of safety varies with the methods
adopted for processing the columns. The result from equivalent
Please cite this article in press as: Chen, J.-F., et al., Failure mechanism of geosynthetic-encased stone columns in soft soils under embankment,
Geotextiles and Geomembranes (2015), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.geotexmem.2015.04.016
bending resistance method is closer to the predictions from
three dimensional analysis.
Acknowledgment
The support from the Shanghai Pujiang Program under grant No.
14PJD032 is gratefully acknowledged.
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