Geosynthetics and Reinforced Soil Structures

Prof. K. Rajagopal
Department of Civil Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras

Module - 1
Lecture - 2
Types and Functions of Geosynthetics

Hello students, let us continue our discussion on the different types of Geosynthetics and
their applications.

(Refer Slide Time: 00:20)

Just to briefly recap the previous lecture, we have discussed the brief introduction of the
geosynthetics and the concept of reinforced soil and the need for geosynthetics. And we
have seen the historical background, the early applications of the geosynthetics and the
different functions of geosynthetics, and the types of geosynthetics.
(Refer Slide Time: 00:46)

And, the, this lecture is a continuation of the discussion on the types of geosynthetics.

(Refer Slide Time: 00:54)

And in the previous lecture, we have already discussed the 2 types of geosynthetics, one
is geotextile and the other is geogrid. And let us continue discussing the about the other
types of geosynthetics.
(Refer Slide Time: 11)

The geonets, these are also planar products and they are very similar to geogrids and
they also consist of ribs in 2 directions, but their aperture openings, they are not
square or rectangular in shape, but they are more of diamond shaped. And the other
major difference between a geonet and the geogrid is that the ribs, in the 2 directions,
they are in 2 different planes. Say for example, the geonet there are ribs in 2 different
directions, they are in 2 different planes, whereas in a geogrid both of them are in the
same plane.

And the thickness of a geonet is much larger than that of geogrid, because the function of
a geonet is very much different from that of the geogrid. And sometimes these geonets,
they are also called as geospaces, because we want to create, we need to create some
space in some situations. So, that there is a flow of free flow of water or for some other
purposes.
(Refer Slide Time: 28)

And this slide, it shows typical geonets and we see that, the ribs are in 2 different
planes and then the thickness of each of these ribs is very large, compared to that of a
geogrid. And here, you see the close-up of the same thing, the ribs in 2 different
directions and the aperture openings, they are more of diamond shaped and not square or
rectangular.

(Refer Slide Time: 03:04)

These geonet applications, they are mainly used for erosion control, because these ribs,
because they are very thick, they act as small check dams to slow down the surface
runoff. And once the rain water surface runoff is slowed down, it reduces the
erosion
potential of the water and there by reduce the surface erosion of the soil. And the geonets
can also be used as excellent drainage layers, because of the thickness of the geonet the
soil in between the small diamond shaped openings is not very highly compacted and
because of that, there is some flow path for the water to flow, through the geonet.

(Refer Slide Time: 03:57)

Here is a good application of a geonet is actually, this geonet is made of polymeric rope
and this is called as a boulder net and this is used in the Konkan railway in the
Western Ghats. And the main function of this geonet is to act as a boulder and as a
guide for the loose boulders.

So, that these loose boulders, they do not fall into the railway track, because most of the
Konkan railway is formed by cutting very deep gorges and the train passes through
a very narrow g o r g e and when the boulders come loose during the heavy rainfall,
the boulders come directly, they fall into the railway track and because of that there
were several accidents for the past few years.

And you would have also read some newspaper reports or in the T V reports about
the train accidents taking place at the Konkan railway, because of the fall of the
boulders. And the purpose of these boulder nets is to guide these loose boulders to fall
into a trap, that is on both sides of the railway track. And in indirect manner, they also
help in the growth of vegetation on the slopes
(Refer Slide Time: 05:24)

And here, we see in this slide, you see the laying of the boulder net on these cuts and on
the right hand side, you can see the growth of vegetation after about 2 seasons and these
2 slides are the courtesy of M/s Garware wall ropes.

(Refer Slide Time: 05:44)

And this is how, we anchor the rope net top of the slope is actually, there is a 1 meter
deep trenche and which is 0.5 meters wide. And it is the rope net is anchored in the
trenche and the size of trench, especially the depth of the trench and the width, they are
decided based on the amount of tension, that is likely to be developed based on the size
of the boulders, that are prevalent are this particular place. And here, you see the railway
track going through a very narrow gorge and this is one typical application of a boulder
net or a rope net in Konkan railway.

(Refer Slide Time: 06:31)

The other geosynthetic product is geomembrane, which is very commonly used for
construction of landfills or for lining the canals or for lining some other water retaining
structures. And these geomembranes, these are nothing but thick impervious plastic
sheets and typically, their thickness can vary anywhere from 0.5 millimeters to almost 3
millimeters.

And these geomembranes are used to contain liquids or the gases and there are several
varieties of geomembranes and the left hand side, we have a geomembrane with rough
texture whereas, on the right hand side, we have a very smooth geomembrane. And
depending on the necessity, we may use a smooth geomembrane or a very rough
geomembrane.
(Refer Slide Time: 71)

Some of the applications of the geomembranes, they are used in landfill linings and they
can be used as canal lining materials or they can be used in the tunnels to prevent the rain
water from flowing, through the tunnel or t o prevent the moisture from coming into
the tunnel.

(Refer Slide Time: 07:51)

And here, we see the lining of a land fill with a geomembrane. T h e main purpose is
if there is a hazardous waste or a toxic waste the, this, the product of this toxic waste,
they will not flow through the landfill and contaminate the ground water.
(Refer Slide Time: 85)

And here, we see the application of a geomembrane for canal lining and here, we see
this, the geomembrane, that is lined on the canal and the geomembrane itself is
protected by concrete panels on the topso that the geomembrane is not directly exposed
to the sun, because all these polymeric products, they have, they get degraded, because
of the exposure to light and the heat that is the Sun. And the geomembrane, that is lined
up, that is anchored at the top using an anchor trench.

(Refer Slide Time: 09:06)

And here, we see the application of a geomembrane for canal lining to prevent the
moisture from seeping into the inside of the tunnel.

(Refer Slide Time: 09:20)

And another major application of the of the geosynthetic season, the form of a pre-
fabricated vertical drain, that is used for accelerating the consolidation of a soft soils. It
is actually, on the left hand side, I have given the equation for the time factor, as a
function of the coefficient of consolidation and the drainage path length d.

And then the time t and we know that the time T is directly proportional to the square of
the drainage path length. And of course, the time factor and inversely proportional to the
to the coefficient of consolidation and here, the only parameter that, we can change so
that, we have a reduced time for consolidation is the drainage path length d, because the
soil properties, we cannot change and then the Tv is the time factor that is related to the
degree of consolidation that, we want to achieve. And if you are able to reduce the
drainage path length d by a factor of 2, the time for consolidation will reduce by a factor
of 4, because of the time is directly proportional to the square of the drainage path
length.
 (Refer Slide Time: 10:35)

And here is a typical manner in which we can apply the these drains and let us say that,
we have a thick clay soil and if we do not put in anything the water has to travel this
much length to escape from this soil. And it takes a very long time to consolidate the
soil. On the other hand, if you introduce some highly permeable members either sand
columns or the pre-fabricated vertical drains and the length of the drainage pathso that the
water can escape from the soil is very, very small, in this particular case, if the water
particle travels the small distance, it can enter into this highly pervious column either sand
column or a pre-fabricated vertical drain. And once it enters this drainage medium, it
can escape very fast and that is the principle of the pre-consolidation somehow, we reduce
the flow path length.

So, that our time for consolidation is reduced and in the early days the sand was used for
constructing these drains, and we all know what are the problems, that are associated
with the sand columns, they can get contaminated by the soft clay or if there are some
differential movements inside the ground , the efficiency of the sand columns will reduce
tremendously and to overcome all these problems, we have come out with pre-fabricated
vertical drains.
(Refer Slide Time: 12:26)

And in cross section a pre-fabricated vertical drain consist of an outer core of a geotextile
that acts as a filter and there is an inner core that acts like the drainage medium. And this
inner core could be made of in the simple PVDs, it could be just a corrugated plastic
sheet, plastic core or in more complicated systems, we could have a geonet in as a core
and at the outside, we could have a thick geotextile, that acts as a filter.

(Refer Slide Time: 13:02)

The concept is like this see, we introduce the pre-fabricated vertical drain into the ground
by pushing, it by attaching it to some anchors like this and then we just simply push it
and
then allow the water to come out. And here, we see a schematic illustration of the
water flowing through the geotextile filter and once it enters the core, because the
core is highly permeable, the water comes out very fast.

(Refer Slide Time: 13:38)

And here, we see the application of pre-fabricated vertical drains at a construction site
with a very soft clay subgrade, soft clay foundation soil and here we see some PVDs
that are already installed. And here, we see these 2 people attaching the P V D to an
anchor plate.

(Refer Slide Time: 14:04)

Is actually, here we see this another view of the same thing.

(Refer Slide Time: 14:10)

And once the entire ground is treated with pre-fabricated vertical drains, we can apply
some surcharge on this and the soil. And the amount of surcharge that we apply should
be corresponding to the expected foundation pressures that, we have after the full
construction takes place.

(Refer Slide Time: 14:35)

Another product geosynthetic product that, we have is geosynthetic clay liner is actually,
this geosynthetic clay liner is an additional protection member that, we can, that we have
in the landfills. And these GCLs, they consist of a core of a bentonite clay, that is
sandwiched between 2 layers of thick non-woven geotextiles.

And this is applied below and above the geomembrane land in a landfill and because of
the provision of this GCL, there could be a self-repair mechanism. Because, for
example, when there is some damage to a geomembrane, the fluid starts flowing and
once the fluid starts flowing it comes in contact with the dry bentonite powder, that is
placed in a geosynthetic clay liner, that is the GCL. And you know that once the
bentonite clay comes in contact with water it expands once it swells, it can close the
opening, because of this expansion and that, we call as a the self-repair mechanism and it
can close the gaps, that are caused, because of the damage in the geomembrane.

(Refer Slide Time: 16:03)

And schematically GCL is something like this, we have a core of dry bentonite powder
that is sandwiched between 2 thick geotextile layers. And the right hand side, we see a
product of the G C L is actually, it is the same thing shown on the left hand side, we have
a thick geotextile layer and on the inside, we have the bentonite powder.
(Refer Slide Time: 164)

The geocell is different from all the other products that, we have seen, they are all planar
products, that is they can provide reinforcement action or they can act as a separator or
they can act as a filter whereas, a geocell, it has 3 dimensional effect on the soil. It can
provide some confinement, because it has number of openings, is actually, this geocell,
it is more of a honeycomb structure wherein, we take thin sheets of a plastic
products, similar to a geomembrane and the weld it at several places at along the
length like this. These plastic sheets, they are ultrasonically welded and then the entire
thing comes in a collapsed form in small rolls and once they have taken to the site, they
can be expanded and once you expand them, these pockets form and these pockets can
be filled with soil to construct road base or several other things.
 (Refer Slide Time: 173)

The expanded geocell is a something like this. When the geocells first came into the
market, this the geocells are made of p l a i n plastic sheets like very similar to a
geomembrane without any openings or without any rough surface. And now the more
recent geocells, they are made with a either corrugated surface.so that they have a very
good interaction with the in filled soil or with some openings, so that the geocell layer
can also act as a drainage layer, because this once this, the geocell is made of a plastic
sheet without any openings, it cannot allow the water to flow, the water can only go down
and below that, below the geocell, we should have some geotextile or something, that
can act as a drainage layer.
(Refer Slide Time: 185)

And some of the advantages that, we have with the geocells, these are easy to transport,
because they come in a collapsed form. And then they do not occupy much volume
and once these geocells are taken to the site and expanded, we can cover very large
area, sometimes even as wide as about 4 meters wide and 10 meters long. Once it
is in a collapse form, it may not occupy much space, it might be as compact as just a
laptop bag. And we can use any fill material in these geocells and because of the all
round confinement, that is given to the soil, it forms a semi-rigid layer providing a
very stiff support to the loads, that we apply.

And because of the semi-rigid nature of the layer, it can spread the load over a very wide
area, thus reducing the pressures that are transmitted into the subgrade and because of
that, we have very good load dispersion and reduced settlements and reduced bearing
capacity failures in the foundation soil. And this geocell layer, it can also provide
excellent support even under cyclic loading, for example, under railway tracks or under
high speed highways and so on.
(Refer Slide Time: 20:34)

And some of the typical applications the, apart from the load carrying functions, it
can also be used as a erosion control product or for construction of steep slopes and
retaining walls. And as a sub-base support it is a very excellent product, it can be
used in road bases or it can be used in the railway tracks or it can be used for
construction of the container yards and so on.

(Refer Slide Time: 21:02)

And here we see the use of a geocell for construction of an unpaved road in a dairy
factory and the ground is prepared on this left hand side preparation of the ground by
leveling it
and we can now lay this the geocell and then whenever there is a continuation of the
geocell, we staple them. So, that they are joined together and here the geocells are filled
with aggregates and then once it is filled with aggregate, we can do the compaction using
our rollers. And then the entire surface, it can be just simply left as it is without any
treatment, because of the surface, because of the confinement that is given by the
geocell.

The soil is preserved and the and that road surface can have very good integrity and the
main advantage with the geocells is that at a very low confining pressure, it provides
excellent support excellent lateral support and because of that the soil behaves like a very
stiff material. We know that when there is a good confinement the soil can be very, very
strong and that is exactly what a geocell does.

(Refer Slide Time: 22:28)

And here we see the application of a geocell for construction of a steep slope or for
stabilizing the steep slope.
(Refer Slide Time: 22:37)

And here, we see the construction of a very steep slope using geocells and the,
and because of the open geocell pockets, we can promote the vegetation through this
open pockets. And once these the vegetation takes root the entire thing could be a green
color surface and we will not even see that the geocells are applied for construction of
the slope.

(Refer Slide Time: 23:11)

And here, you see some of the students at IIT Madras standing on a geocell supported
soil, which is about 1 and half meters tall. And here, you notice that these geocells are
made of, made with open structure with the number of openings in the geocell, that is
to promote a good interaction between the soil inside different pockets.

(Refer Slide Time: 23:44)

And here, we see the application of a geocell, for a treatment of container yard, these
container yards typically, they have very heavy loads, because of the movement of the of
this the container vehicles and these are usually constructed on soft marine clays near the
shore and so the problems are compounded, we have very heavy loads, but at the same
time, we have very soft support, very soft subgrade soil and the result is like this.

(Refer Slide Time: 24:15)

In fact, this particular container yard in Chennai was built on reclaimed land and the
thickness of the soil, that is placed is about 1 and half to 2 meters very thick soil layer
was placed and then that was stabilized by good compaction. And then on top of that
there was about 500 millimeters thick pavement layer in the form of boulders then
aggregates and then sand cement mix and so on.

In spite of that the deformations that are taking place in the soft clay, they get reflected
back and we have a typical mud wave formation and once this mud waves form or they
get reflected back at the surface, there is a problem because, all these container vehicles
they are very heavy and is also dangerous for them to move on a highly regular
surface, because there is a danger for these containers to swing at a very fast rate. And
so these container yards, they should be as smooth as possible and as flat as possible
and this particular container yard was repaired by placing a layer of a geocell at the top.

(Refer Slide Time: 25:49)

And here, we see the construction process, first we lay the layer of geotextile, that can
act as a separator.
(Refer Slide Time: 25:59)

And then later it was the geocell was placed and it is filled with aggregate.

(Refer Slide Time: 26:06)

And this constructed surface is actually, it is absolutely flat and these are the
photographs taken 3 years after the geocell treatment of the same area where, we have
seen these mud waves, that were formed. And it is actually, the entire yard is flat and
the that allows the free movement of the of these container vehicles and another
problem with the uneven ground is if these containers, they are stacked on uneven
ground, they tend to get
damaged by, because of the bending action. And so we need flat support, so that
these containers also, they do not get damaged.

(Refer Slide Time: 27:04)

And here we see some close-ups of these, this container yard, this was treated
with geocell. Except for some damage in the form of chipped paver blocks, there is no
other damage and this entire thing was it has become so successful that similar designs
are employed in many other container yards, using the geocells for reconstruction of
these container yards.

So, basically in spite of constructing this container yard, in an extremely soft soil, we
are able to provide a good surface, because the entire geocell layer, it was, it acted
as a single layer and also as a semi rigid layer. And because of that, the surface was very
good and in fact, in some neighboring area, they had done with 150 millimeters thick
concrete layer reinforced concrete layer.

But, unfortunately the reinforced concrete did not last for more than 2 years, it started
cracking and then because of the marine environment, the steel started corroding and
the entire area could not be used, because of the corrosion of the steel. And
because of excessive cracking of the reinforced concrete whereas, this the geocell being
a polymeric product, it was highly stable and it was able to hold the soil together.
(Refer Slide Time: 28:52)

Some of the erosion control products are shown here is actually these are, this is a
trimped mesh, once it is spread on the ground, it slows down the flow of water. And
it prevents the erosion of soil, because it, once it confines to the soil some extent,
then it slows down the speed of the rain water on a slope. And once the rain water at the
surface runoff is slowed down, its erosion potential is reduced and then the soil is more
stable.

(Refer Slide Time: 29:37)

And another type of geosynthetics, they are geocomposites, we have several varieties of
geocomposites. In fact, the prefabricated vertical drain is an example of a geocomposite
wherein, we use a geotextile as an outer filter and inner core could be a geonet or some
other form of a corrugated the plastic sheet. So, that is one example of a geocomposite
and other examples are shown here, these are combinations of a geotextile and a
geogrid, they take advantage of the specific product properties of both the materials that
are they like.

Geotextile, it has excellent separation properties and also excellent filter properties
whereas, the geogrid can have a excellent strength and stiffness. So, if you combine both
of them they provide the reinforcement action they can provide drainage action, they can
provide filter action. And here on the left hand side, we see another product, that is a
combination of a geotextile and geogrid or and these are all in fact, this product it
produces a very high force of the order of 200 kilo Newton per meter at a very low
strain of less than 4 percent. So, that is how strong the geosynthetics can be depending
on the manufacturing process and depending on the materials that, we use they can be
made to provide multiple functions.

(Refer Slide Time: 31:36)

And there are several other geocomposites or w h a t a r e known as geo others,

geodrains. Geodrain is nothing but a plastic pipe with perforations, once they are
buried in the soil they can act as drains. Because, through the, through this perforations
in the pipe the rain water or the water in the soil can be collected and then it can be, it
can flow through the
 pipe and gets collected in a in some place and it can either pumped out or if you have
any source of water, we can just lead all this rain water into some place.

And we have number of varieties of light weight fills, especially the lightweight fills
made of polystyrene, expanded polystyrene and so on. And we have geopipes, which is,
which are very similar to geodrains and then we have geotextile bags, one application
that have already shown earlier for the construction of coastal erosion protection
structures. And these geobags, they can be used as soil encapsulation, especially, say if
you are constructing in a very soft soil, we can use very large geobagsand put in aggregate
or soil and encapsulate the soil and the entire thing can act as a rigid mat and the
gabions, they are once again, they can be categorized as geo others and these gabions, they
can be either made of steel wire meshes or they can be made of rope nets and so on. And
geosynthetic encased stone columns, these are of more recent origin and they are used
for forming stiff columns in soft clays. And of course, there are so many other
possibilities, these are left to the imagination of engineers. And every few months or
few years, we see a new application of geosynthetics in a very innovative manner for
construction in difficult soil conditions.

(Refer Slide Time: 34:07)

Actually, these are some examples of the geoboards or drainage boards, that are used
behind retaining walls. It is actually here, we have a geotextile either a woven or
nonwoven geotextile. And then we have a punched plastic sheet more like cotton that can
act as a drainage layer and if this is fixed behind retaining wall, it can act as an excellent
drain along the length of the, along the height of the retaining wall. And in place of
in place of a drainage layer, that is made by using aggregate very good quality
aggregate, we can just simply stick one of these drainage boards behind a retaining wall
to act as a drain.

(Refer Slide Time: 35:00)

And we have number of light weight fills and these light weight fills, if they are made of
small beads of polystyrene, they can also be made to act as good drainage medium and
here, we see an example of a lightweight fill made by bonding polystyrene beads. And
the typical unit weight of these light weight materials is of the order of the 0.3 to 0.4
Kilo Newtons per cubic meter. Comparatively, the weight of a soil typical soil could be
anywhere from 18 to 20 Kilo Newtons per cubic meter.

And even the weight of fly ash could be of the order of 8 to 9 Kilo Newtons per
cubic meter. So, you just imagine using these light weight fills as land fill material
or for construction of road bases and so on. Absolutely, they will not result in any
settlements and these lightweight fills could be made of stiff styro-foam or styro-foam
or polystyrene blocks, for construction of road bases and so on or for embankments and
so on.
(Refer Slide Time: 36:26)

And here as we see the example of gabions and these gabions are nothing but baskets
made of either steel wires, steel wire meshes or rope net meshes. And here in this
particular case, we have the rope net meshes and these gabions, they are packed with
stones or they are filled with geotextile bags, filled with sand to act as sea walls or as
groin structures or to prevent to act as break waters and so on. And here, we see an
example of a sea wall that was built using rope net gabions filled with stones.

(Refer Slide Time: 37:19)

And here, we see an example of the gabion structures for breaking the sea waves and
the, is actually, this instead of filling this gabions with stones, we feel them this was
path of some research were going on at IIT Madras. Here, we have these geobags, that
are filled with bead sand that is readily available at the place where, we need to protect
the beads and these are these bags are filled inside, these rope net gabions. And then
we close them and we tie up several of these rope net gabions together and the
weight of each of these sand bags is hardly about 20 k g’s.

So, they can be easily handled by people and once, they are brought and assembled in a
geobag, each one cubic meter of rope net gabion can accommodate about 50 kgs of
these geobags. That means that, the weight of each of these rope net gabion could be as
high as 1000 kgs or 1 ton and once all these similar bags, they are tied up together their
combined mass could be very, very large. And they can be easily used for coastal
protection works and here, we see the small break water, which is able to withstand
about 1 and half meters wave that is shown here.

(Refer Slide Time: 39:13)

And there are other products, that have made of used rubber tires and other industrial
waste products, which are all cut to pieces and bounded together, so that we provide
some thick mass, some thick medium, that is highly porous and slightly compressible,
s o that it can act as a cushion and also it acts, it can act as a drainage medium and
behind retaining walls, if these are applied, they can be made to act as a as drainage
medium or they can also be employed to reduce lateral earth pressures in the soil by
promoting some yielding in the soil like. We know that when the soil expands laterally,
the lateral earth pressures reduce and that concept is called as a controlled yielding and
we will see the concept of controlled yielding and how these geosynthetics can be
employed in some other lectures later on.

(Refer Slide Time: 40:24)

And one recent application of geosynthetics is in the form of encased stone columns. The
stone columns are traditionally employed by geotechnical engineers for supporting of
flexible structures like oil storage tanks or road way embankments and so on. And these
stone columns, if they are constructed in extremely soft clays, the main problem is it is
difficult to form the stone column.

And there is not sufficient confinement given by surrounding the soft clay, because of
that, these columns may not develop adequate strength to support the applied load and in
most of these cases, the stone columns, they also act as excellent drainage mediums. But,
then when there is extremely soft clay all around the stone column, the soft clay can
contaminate the stone column and the stone column aggregate.

And in the process, it can clog all the openings in the stone column and once these
aggregate materials, which have very good shear strength on by their own, but once
they are contaminated, they will have very highly lubricate surfaces resulting in loss of
shear strength of these aggregate, and once these problems can be easily overcome by
encasing
the stone column by a geosynthetic, in the form of a geotextile or a geocomposite and so
on.

And the advantages that we gain is we provide some additional confinement to the stone
column and we prevent the contamination of the stone column material by the
surrounding clays and its more easy to form the stone column. Because, many times, it is
very difficult to the form the stone column in an extremely soft clay having an
undrained cohesive strength less than about 10 kPa that could typically, happen in
marine clays and so on, in all such cases, we can easily construct the stone column by
encasing them inside a geotextile tube.

(Refer Slide Time: 42:57)

And here, we see an example of a geotextile column, geotextile reinforced sand column
and the left hand side, we see how it is formed, we drive an open tube, a pipe into the soil
either by means of vibration or by water jet. Once this open tube is lowered to the
desired depth, we lower tube of a geotextile and then we can fill it with, sorry, then we
can fill it with soil either sand or course material like gravel or aggregate. And then we
can compact it by means of vibration when this tube is taken out, it can be vibrated to
compact the soil and once the tube is taken out, we have this geosynthetic encased
column, either stone column or a sand column and these are used for constructing in
extremely soft clays, for example, the airbus A380
factory i n Germany was supported on this stone columns formed in this process, in
this, using this technique.

(Refer Slide Time: 44:22)

And here, we see an encased stone column using a geogrid is actually when geogrids can
be used, because they have very high tensile strength and they can provide very good
confinement and in areas where, we do not anticipate any contamination of the stone
column material by the soft clays, we can use a geogrid.

(Refer Slide Time: 44:47)

And here we see some test data from laboratory tests on encased stone columns, the
pressures settlement data of the soft clay is like this.

The strength of the soft clay is of the order of about 3 to 5 kPa, kilo Pascals, because this
was this soil was prepared at a consistency very close to liquid limitso that there is a
uniform consistency of the soft clay and when the stone columns were constructed, this
is how the pressure settlement behavior is the soft clay it failed at very low pressure of
the order of 10 to 15 kilo Pascals. And by inserting stone column OSC stands for
ordinary stone column a 50, 75 or 100 mm, the pressure capacity has increased to nearly
50 k P a and all these stone columns, they had similar pressure settlement data.

And when this the same stone columns were encased in a geotextile column, this is how
they perform, the 50 mm column, they had very high strength and the pressure as much
as far 400 kPa could be applied, see the pressure on reinforced stone column was hardly
50 kilo Pascals and when the stone column was built using aggregate, the pressure could
be increased about 50 k P a.

And when the stone column is encased in a geotextile in and fact this nonwoven
geotextile, it has very low strength of the about 20 or 25 kilo Newtons per meter,
the compressive pressure of nearly 400 kPa could be applied. And more importantly, if
you look at the slope of this graph, the slope represents the stiffness or the ability of
the ground to support the loads without undergoing the settlements.

So, for example, even at a pressure of 100 kPa, the settlement of the stone column
treated ground is hardly about 5 to 8 millimeters whereas, at a pressure of, we could not
even apply a pressure of 100 kPa on ordinary stone column. So, that is the advantage
that, we gain with these stone columns and here interestingly as the stone column
diameter increases like for example, this is the response of 50, sorry, the 50 mm diameter
stone column and this is the response of 75 mm diameter stone column, this is the other
one is for 100 millimeters. This is actually as the diameter of the stone column increases,
the influence of the geotextile reduces, because as the diameter is increasing, the hoop
strains or the hoop tensile forces, that are developed reduce.

And because of the reduction in the hoop tensile force the confinement the additional
confinement, that is given by the geosynthetic reduces and consequently as the diameter
is increased, we need to use a stiffer confinement material and in this particular case all
 the 3 diameters of the stone columns they had the same geosynthetic material that,
produces the same hoop tensile forces at a given strain and because of that we see the
reduction in the stiffness and the pressure capacity as the diameter increases.

And is actually, in this particular case, I have not shown the data, but in some other
lecture, I will show you the data from test performed on different diameter of the stone
columns and with different stiffness of these geosynthetics. We see that, we can increase
the pressure to very large values and imagine using this type of stone columns in
extremely soft clays,we can practically eliminate the settlements. In fact, the normal stone
columns, they can reduce the settlements by about 40 to 50 percent. So, if an untreated
ground undergoes settlement of let us say some 3 to 400 millimeters, even by providing
the stone columns at very close spacing as much as 2 times the at a spacing of about let us
say 1 and half to 2 times the diameter. The settlements reduce to only about may be 2 to
300 millimeters, but then if you use these encased stone columns, because they act almost
like rigid piles.

The settlements are practical in negligible and because of the increased stiffness and
increased strength, we can increase the spacing of these stone columns and that is the
main advantage that we gain by using encased stone columns. And the most recent
technique is the encased stone columns, that are becoming very popular not only in India
even in other countries.

(Refer Slide Time: 50:46)

So, some of the latest trends that, we have in the geosynthetics, they are the applications
of the geosynthetics for vacuum consolidation of soft clays and then of course, encased
stone columns and the electro kinetic geosynthetics, in here, we employ some
copper wires along with a geotextiles or geogrids, so that we can change the
fundamental properties of the soft clays by polarizing the soil, because these
techniques, we will see in some future lectures.

Thank you very much.