ARTICLE IN PRESS

Geotextiles and Geomembranes 24 (2006) 349–358

www.elsevier.com/locate/geotexmem

Geosynthetic-encased stone columns: Numerical evaluation

S. Murugesan, K. Rajagopal
Department of Civil Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai 600036, India
Received 30 January 2006; received in revised form 24 May 2006; accepted 25 May 2006
Available online 18 July 2006

Abstract

Stone columns (or granular piles) are increasingly being used for ground improvement, particularly for flexible structures such as road
embankments, oil storage tanks, etc. When the stone columns are installed in extremely soft soils, the lateral confinement offered by the
surrounding soil may not be adequate to form the stone column. Consequently, the stone columns installed in such soils will not be able
to develop the required load-bearing capacity. In such soils, the required lateral confinement can be induced by encasing the stone
columns with a suitable geosynthetic. The encasement, besides increasing the strength and stiffness of the stone column, prevents the
lateral squeezing of stones when the column is installed even in extremely soft soils, thus enabling quicker and more economical
installation. This paper investigates the qualitative and quantitative improvement in load capacity of the stone column by encasement
through a comprehensive parametric study using the finite element analysis. It is found from the analyses that the encased stone columns
have much higher load carrying capacities and undergo lesser compressions and lesser lateral bulging as compared to conventional stone
columns. The results have shown that the lateral confining stresses developed in the stone columns are higher with encasement. The
encasement at the top portion of the stone column up to twice the diameter of the column is found to be adequate in improving its load
carrying capacity. As the stiffness of the encasement increases, the lateral stresses transferred to the surrounding soil are found to
decrease. This phenomenon makes the load capacity of encased columns less dependent on the strength of the surrounding soil as
compared to the ordinary stone columns.
r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Stone column; Geosynthetic encasement; Granular pile; Finite element analysis; Soft soil; Hyperbolic non-linear elastic

1. Introduction thereby inducing near-passive pressure conditions in the

surrounding soil (Greenwood, 1970). Several papers have
A number of methods are available to improve the soft been published in the past on the stone column as a ground
clay soils, such as stone (or granular) columns (Green- reinforcing technique. Bergado et al. (1990) found from
wood, 1970; Hughes et al., 1975) vacuum pre-consolidation field studies that the installation of granular piles increased
(Indraratna et al., 2004), soil cement columns (Rampello the bearing capacity by as much as four times and
and Callisto, 2003), pre-consolidation using pre-fabricated increased the factor of safety of slopes by approximately
vertical drains (Shen et al., 2005) and lime treatment 25%. They also reported the improved performance of
(Rajasekaran and Rao, 2002). Among all these methods, stone columns compared to prefabricated vertical drains.
the stone column technique is preferred because it gives the Further development in the stone column technique is
advantage of reduced settlements and accelerated consoli- reinforcing the column using either horizontal layers of
dation settlements due to reduction in flow path lengths. reinforcement (Sharma, 1998; Sharma et al., 2004) or
Another major advantage with this technique is the encasing the individual stone column by geosynthetics
simplicity of its construction method. The stone columns (Raithel and Kempfert, 2000; Raithel et al., 2002) over the
develop their load carrying capacity through bulging and full or partial height of the column. The geosynthetic
encasement will increase the load carrying capacity of stone
Corresponding author. Tel.: +91 44 2257 4263; fax: +91 44 2257 0509. columns by many folds due to the additional confinement
E-mail addresses: smgsoil@sify.com (S. Murugesan), from the geosynthetic. The geosynthetic encasement also
gopalkr@iitm.ac.in (K. Rajagopal). prevents the lateral squeezing of stones when the stone

0266-1144/$ - see front matter r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.geotexmem.2006.05.001
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350 S. Murugesan, K. Rajagopal / Geotextiles and Geomembranes 24 (2006) 349–358

Nomenclature pa atmospheric pressure

Rf failure ratio
c cohesion ro original radius
do , + diameter of the stone column s centre to centre spacing between stone columns
E Young’s modulus SIF stress intensity factor
ESC geosynthetic-encased stone column t thickness of geosynthetic elements
Et tangent elastic modulus u radial deformation
h depth of encasement from the ground level (top z depth of soil layer
of stone column) g unit weight of material
H total height of stone column Ds3 increase in confining pressure
J modulus of stiffness of geosynthetic Dz increase in radius of stone column
K Young’s modulus number ea axial strain
M secant stiffness of the geosynthetic ey hoop strain
m Young’s modulus exponent m Poisson’s ratio
OSC ordinary stone column (without any encase- f angle of internal friction
ment) s1, s3 major and minor principal stresses

column is installed in some extremely soft soils, leading to a cylindrical unit cell is considered, consisting of stone
minimal loss of stones and quicker installation. The column and soil from the influence area. The influence
published literature on the performance of encased stone areas for stone columns installed in square and triangular
columns is limited. Katti et al. (1993) proposed a theory for plan patterns are calculated from that of an equivalent
the improvement of soft ground using stone columns with square or hexagonal area, respectively. The radius of the
geosynthetic encasement based on the particulate concept. circular influence area is related to the centre to centre
Malarvizhi and Ilamparuthi (2004) reported the improved spacing ‘s’ between the stone columns as 0.564s and 0.525s
performance of geosynthetic-encased stone columns based for square and triangular patterns, respectively, Barron
on small-scale laboratory tests on end bearing as well as (1948).
floating columns. It was found that the ultimate bearing In finite element models, the cylindrical unit cell can be
capacity of reinforced stone column treated beds is three idealised using axisymmetric model with radial symmetry
times that of the untreated beds. Raithel and Kempfert around the vertical axis passing through the centre of the
(2000) and Raithel et al. (2002) studied the performance of stone column. The finite element mesh was developed using
geosynthetic-encased sand columns through numerical and 8-node quadrilateral elements for all the components in the
analytical models. Ayadat and Hanna (2005) performed system as shown in Fig. 1. The stone columns and the soft
experimental investigation on the load carrying capacity soil are modelled using hyperbolic non-linear elastic
and settlement of stone columns encapsulated in geogrid equation as given in Eq. (1) (Duncan and Chang, 1970).
textile material and concluded that the ultimate carrying It was decided to use this simple model because of its
capacity of a stone column increases with an increase in the ability to relate the modulus of the soil to the confining
stiffness of the geofabric material used to encapsulate the pressure and the mobilised shear strength of the soil.
sand column.
  m
In the present study, the effectiveness of geosynthetic Rf ð1
sin fÞðs1
s3 Þ 2 s3
Et ¼ 1
Kpa , (1)
encasement on the stone columns is investigated through 2c cos f þ 2s3 sin f pa
parametric study carried out by finite element analysis. The where Et is the tangent elastic modulus, c and f are the
influence of the parameters such as the stiffness of cohesion and the friction angle of the foundation soil or
geosynthetic encasement, the depth of encasement from stone column, K is a non-dimensional Young’s modulus
ground level, the diameter of stone columns and shear parameter, m is the Young’s modulus exponent which
strength of the surrounding soil is analysed. governs the stress dependence of K on s3, Rf is the failure
ratio which defines the shape of the stress–strain curve, s1
2. Numerical analyses and s3 are the major and minor principal stresses and pa is
the atmospheric pressure. More details on this model can
All the analyses in this investigation were performed be found in Duncan and Chang (1970). The hyperbolic
using the finite element program ‘GEOFEM’ which was material properties for different materials were selected
originally developed at the Royal Military College of from the database of hyperbolic parameters published by
Canada (Rajagopal and Bathurst, 1993) and subsequently Duncan et al. (1980) and are listed in Table 1. The
modified at Indian Institute of Technology Madras. The geosynthetic encasement around the stone column was
stone columns are usually installed in square or triangular modelled as linear elastic material and discretised as
plan patterns in the field. For design and analysis purposes, continuum elements around the stone column (considering
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S. Murugesan, K. Rajagopal / Geotextiles and Geomembranes 24 (2006) 349–358 351

axisymmetric idealisation) as shown in Fig. 1. The Young’s shear strength values equal to two-third of the strength of
modulus (E) of the geosynthetic was derived from the the parent material in order to allow the relative deforma-
relation J ¼ E  t. Where ‘t’ is the thickness of the element tion between the encasement and adjacent materials.
used to represent the geosynthetic and ‘J’ is the secant The numerical scheme employed in the current analysis
stiffness of the geosynthetic which is defined as the ratio of was verified against the results on piled embankments,
tensile force per unit width to the average strain in the published by Han and Gabr (2002). The material proper-
geosynthetic. The creep effects of the geosynthetic are not ties for pile, soil, embankment fill and reinforcement layer
considered in this study, by assuming that the hoop tension used in this validation analyses are the same as those
force developed in the encasement is much smaller than the reported in Table 1 of Han and Gabr (2002). As assumed
tensile capacity of the geosynthetic. Further, the effects of by Han and Gabr (2002) the pile and geosynthetic are
stone column installation on development and dissipation assumed to be perfectly bonded to the soil. A typical
of the pore pressures are neglected in the analysis. In order comparison between the two is shown in Fig. 2. The
to reduce the number of parameters in the investigation, comparison is reasonable at all embankment heights. The
interface elements between the different materials were not slight difference is thought to be due to the different
used in the analyses. However, the elements immediately numerical schemes employed.
adjacent to the geosynthetic encasement are given lower
3. Parametric studies

In order to quantify the improvement achieved due to

the encasement, the following cases were analysed.

1. Ordinary stone columns (OSCs) (without encasement)

installed in clay soil and
2. geosynthetic-encased stone columns (ESC) installed in
clay soil.

Initially, the analyses were performed by applying

uniform pressure on the stone column portion alone in
order to directly assess the influence of the confinement

180
Unreinforced - Present study
Unreinforced - Han and Gabr (2002)
maximum settlement (mm)

160 Reinforced - Present Study

Reinforced- Han and Gabr (2002)

140

120

100

80
0 1 2 3 4 5
height of embankment (m)

Fig. 1. Typical finite element mesh used in the analyses. Fig. 2. Comparison of results from validation analyses.

Table 1
Material properties

Materials Hyperbolic model parameters

K m m Rf c (kPa) f g (kN/m3)

Stone column 1200 0.7 0.3 0.7 0 42 20

Foundation soil 50 0.5 0.45 0.7 20 0 17
Embankment fill 150 0.5 0.3 0.7 0 30 17
Geosynthetic encasement Linear elastic with Poisson’s ratio, m ¼ 0:3
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effects due to encasement. Later, analyses were performed there is severe bulging near the ground surface up to a
by constructing layers of soil above the stone-column- depth equal to twice the diameter of the stone column. On
reinforced foundation soil. Detailed parametric analyses the other hand, the encased stone columns have undergone
were performed by varying the diameter of the stone much lesser lateral expansion near the ground surface. The
column, stiffness of the geosynthetic used for encasement, encased columns have undergone slightly higher lateral
depth of encasement from the top of the stone column and expansions at deeper depths as compared to the OSCs. This
cohesion value of the surrounding clay soil. All cases were could have happened because the applied surface load is
idealised through axisymmetric modelling. The improved transmitted deeper into the column due to encasement
performance was quantified based on the reduction in effects.
settlement of the stone column and lateral bulging of the The lateral confining stresses mobilised along the height
stone column. The foundation soil in all the cases is of the 1 and 0.6 m diameter stone columns (both ordinary
assumed to be a 5 m thick soft clay layer underlain by a and encased) are illustrated in Fig. 4. It is clear that the
rigid hard stratum. lateral stresses are higher in the encased column as
The typical finite element mesh consisted of 1750 nodes compared to the corresponding lateral stresses in OSCs.
and 550 8-node quadrilateral elements. The external The increase in confining pressure can be seen over the full
loading was applied in small increments. The solution at height of the stone column, which leads to mobilisation of
each step was iterated to reduce the norm of out-of-balance higher vertical load capacity in the encased columns. The
force to less than 0.1% or 25 iterations, whichever happens lateral stresses mobilised in the OSCs without geosynthetic
earlier. The stiffness matrix of the system was updated at encasement are found to be the same for both diameters of
every iteration in view of the dependence of the modulus on the stone columns (0.6 and 1 m). On the other hand, the
the stress state. lateral stresses mobilised in encased stone columns are
higher for smaller diameter columns. The reasons for this
4. Results and discussion are discussed later.
Figs. 5(a) and (b) show the contours of mobilised shear
4.1. Effect of encasement of stone column strength ratio in ordinary and encased stone columns of
1 m diameter, respectively. For clarity purposes, only the
The improvement in the performance of the stone contours around the loaded area are shown in the figures.
column due to encasement was studied by applying The mobilised shear strength ratio is defined as the ratio
pressure only over the stone column area. By encasing, it between the shear stress and the shear strength [(s1
s3)/
is found that the stone columns are confined and the severe (s1
s3)f], whose value ranges from 0 to 1. It could be
lateral bulging has significantly reduced. The lateral observed that in the case of OSCs (without encasement),
bulging observed in the stone columns of two sizes (0.6 the full shear strength of the stones in the column is
and 1 m diameters) with and without encasement is mobilised up to a depth of almost two times the diameter
compared in Fig. 3. In the figure, the lateral bulging at below the surface. On the other hand, in the case of encased
various depths is presented in terms of the increase in stone column (J ¼ 2500 kN=m), only 90% of the shear
radius ‘Dz’ at different depths normalised with original strength is mobilised. It is interesting to note that much
radius of the stone column (ro). This value is also equal to higher shear strength is mobilised in the clay soil adjacent
the hoop strain (ey) in percent (because
y ¼ u=ro in which to the ordinary stone column as compared to that of
‘u’ is the radial displacement). It is observed that in OSCs, encased stone column. Due to the lateral confinement in

lateral bulging ∆z/ro (%) confining pressure (kPa)

0 1 2 3 4 5 0 25 50 75 100
0 0

0.6 m Ø - ESC 0.6 m Ø - ESC

1 0.6 m Ø - OSC 1 0.6 m Ø - OSC
1 m Ø - ESC 1 m Ø - ESC
1 m Ø - OSC
2 1 m Ø - OSC
depth (m)

2
depth (m)

0 0.2 0.4
0
3 3

2.5
4 4

5
5 5

Fig. 3. Lateral bulging observed in stone columns. Fig. 4. Variation in confining pressure along the height of stone column.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
S. Murugesan, K. Rajagopal / Geotextiles and Geomembranes 24 (2006) 349–358 353

5.0 5.0

4.5 4.5

4.0 4.0
height (m)

height (m)
3.5 3.5

3.0 3.0

2.5 2.5

2.0 2.0
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5
(a) horizontal distance (m) (b) horizontal distance (m)

Fig. 5. Mobilised shear strength contours for ordinary and encased stone columns. (a) OSC; (b) ESC with J ¼ 5000 kN/m.

encased stone columns, lesser lateral stresses are trans- pressure (kPa)
ferred to the surrounding soil. 0 50 100 150 200 250 300
0
4.2. Influence of stiffness of encasement

The influence of the tensile stiffness of the geosynthetic

settlement (mm)

50
used for encasement on the performance of the stone
10000 kN/m
column was investigated by varying the stiffness of 2500 kN/m
geosynthetic over a wide range of values (up to 500 kN/m
10,000 kN/m), while all other parameters were kept 100 250 kN/m
constant. Some recent geosynthetic products made 50 kN/m
of high tenacity polyester yarns have tensile strengths of OSC OSC
the order of 10,000 kN/m at a strain of about 5% with a
secant stiffness of 200,000 kN/m (e.g., high strength 150
geotextiles made by Huesker, USA). Fig. 6 shows the Fig. 6. Response of 1 m diameter stone columns with different encasement
pressure settlement behaviour of 1 m diameter stone stiffness values.
column encased with geosynthetic of different stiffness
values. The improved performance due to the enca-
sement can be attributed to the enhancement of overall Rajagopal et al. (1999); Latha et al. (2006)).
stiffness of the columns due to larger lateral stresses
pffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
2M 1
1

a
(confining stresses) mobilised in the column, Ds3 ¼ . (2)
which is illustrated in Fig. 7. It is clearly seen from Fig. 7 do 1

a
that increasing stiffness of geosynthetic encasement The above equation estimates an increase in confining
mobilises larger lateral stresses in the stone columns. pressure in the range of 10–20 kPa for the different stiffness
The increase in the lateral stresses in the columns due values of geosynthetics at vertical pressure of 200 kPa.
to geosynthetic encasement can be calculated using These estimates are within the range of lateral stress
Eq. (2) shown below (Bathurst and Karpurapu (1993); increase for encased columns shown in Fig. 7. The percent
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354 S. Murugesan, K. Rajagopal / Geotextiles and Geomembranes 24 (2006) 349–358

confining pressure (kPa) lateral bulging ∆z/r0 (%)

0 25 50 75 100 0 1 2 3 4
0 0

OSC
1 1
ESC, J= 10000 kN/m

2
depth (m)

depth (m)
OSC
OSC 250 kN/m
3 250 kN/m 3 1000 kN/m
1000 kN/m
2500 kN/m
2500 kN/m
5000 kN/m
4 5000 kN/m 4
10000 kN/m 10000 kN/m

5 5

Fig. 7. Confining pressures in 1 m diameter stone column with different Fig. 9. Influence of encasement stiffness on lateral bulging of 1 m diameter
encasement stiffness values (vertical pressure 200 kPa). stone column (vertical pressure 200 kPa).

100 100

reduction in lateral bulging (%)

80 80
settlement reduction (%)

60 60

0.6 Diameter 0.6 m Diameter

40 40
1m Diameter 1m Diameter

20 20

0 0
0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000
stiffness of encasement (kN/m) stiffness of encasement (kN/m)
Fig. 8. Reduction in settlement with increasing encasement stiffness. Fig. 10. Influence of encasement stiffness on maximum lateral bulging.

reduction in settlement of encased stone columns over that

of the uncased column for different tensile stiffness values
hoop tension force (kN/m)
of geosynthetics under a particular vertical pressure of
200 kPa is shown in Fig. 8 for two diameters (1 and 0.6 m) 0 5 10 15 20 25
0
of stone column.
The lateral bulging observed along the height of the
stone column encased with geosynthetic of different 1
stiffness values is shown in Fig. 9 at an applied pressure
of 200 kPa. The reduction in maximum lateral bulging 2
depth (m)

(occurring near the top portion) due to the encasement of 250 kN/m
1000 kN/m
various stiffness values is illustrated in Fig. 10 for stone 3 2500 kN/m
columns of 1 and 0.6 m diameters. Once again, as the 5000 kN/m
stiffness of the encasement increases, the maximum bulging 10000 kN/m
4
is observed to decrease due to the effects of lateral
confinement.
5
4.3. Hoop tension force in geosynthetic encasement Fig. 11. Hoop tension developed in the encasement of 1 m diameter stone
column.
The hoop tension forces developed in the geosynthetic
encasement of 1 m diameter stone column are shown in
Fig. 11. The forces are high within a depth equal to almost follows the same pattern as the lateral deformations
twice the diameter of stone column and remain more or less undergone by the stone column. The magnitude of the
constant below that depth. The variation of this force maximum tensile force ranges from a low of 1 kN/m to
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S. Murugesan, K. Rajagopal / Geotextiles and Geomembranes 24 (2006) 349–358 355

22 kN/m for different stiffness values of the geosynthetic. diameters. But in case of encased stone columns, the
These tensile forces are much lower than the ultimate long- performance of 0.6 m diameter encased stone columns is
term tensile strength of most commercially available superior to that of 1 m diameter columns. The reason
geosynthetics. Hence, the assumption of linear–elastic for this is the development of larger additional confining
behaviour for the encasement elements in this paper is stresses in smaller diameter encased columns as discussed
justified. For the same reason, the creep effects can also be earlier (Eq. (2) and Fig. 4). Eq. (2) suggests that lesser
assumed to be negligible. The tensile forces developed will confining pressures are generated for larger diameter
be lower for smaller diameter stone columns as illustrated columns as the diameter (do) is in the denominator.
in Fig. 12. The same can also be observed in the results presented
in Fig. 4.
4.4. Influence of diameter of stone column on encasement
effect 4.5. Influence of depth of encasement

The influence of the diameter of the stone column was It is well established that the bulging of stone column
investigated by performing analyses with diameters of 0.6 upon loading will be predominant up to a depth of 1.5–2
and 1 m by applying pressure loading only on the stone times the diameter of stone column from the ground
column surface, while keeping the influence radius constant surface. Hence, only the top portion of the stone column
at 3 m. The analyses were performed for two different needs more lateral confinement in order to improve its
stiffness values of encasement of 500 and 1000 kN/m. The performance. Especially, for very long stone columns, it
pressure–settlement diagrams for the different cases are may not be necessary to provide encasement over the full
presented in Fig. 13. It is seen that the pressure–settlement height. Hence, it was decided to investigate the influence of
responses of the OSCs are almost the same for both the the encasement depth on the response of the stone
columns. Analyses were performed using encasement
hoop tension (kN/m) stiffness of 2500 kN/m and by varying the depth of
encasement from the ground level. Fig. 14 shows the
0 2 4 6 8 10 12
0 pressure–settlement response of 0.6 m diameter stone
columns with different depths of encasement. The variation
1
in settlement reduction over uncased stone column with
depth of encasement for two diameters of stone column
(0.6 and 1 m) is shown in Fig. 15. From this it is observed
depth (m)

2
that the encasement beyond a depth equal to twice the
0.6 m Ø, J= 500 kN/m
diameter of the column does not lead to further improve-
3 0.6 m Ø, J=1000 kN/m
ment in performance. It shows that the confinement at the
1 m Ø, J=500 kN/m
top portion of the stone column is adequate for improved
4 1 m Ø, J=1000 kN/m
performance. The settlement reduction for 0.6 m diameter
stone column is higher because of the higher confining
5 pressures (consequently higher stiffness) developed in the
Fig 12. Hoop tension forces developed in two sizes of stone columns.
stone column for lower diameter of the encased columns.

pressure (kPa) Pressure (kPa)

0 50 100 150 200 250 300 0 50 100 150 200 250 300
0 0

20
25
Settlement (mm)
settlement (mm)

OSC
40
0.6 m Ø OSC
50 do
0.6 m Ø, J=500 kN/m depth of encasement
60 0.6 m Ø, J=1000 kN/m depth of 5m
1 m Ø, OSC encasement 4m
height of stone 3m
1 m Ø, J=500 kN/m 75 'h" column, H 2m
80 1 m Ø, J=1000 kN/m
1m
0.5 m
OSC
100 100

Fig. 13. Influence of diameter of the stone column on the pressure Fig. 14. Influence of depth of encasement on the response of 0.6 m
settlement response. diameter stone column.
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100 increases. This phenomenon makes the capacity of encased

columns practically independent of the strength of the
80 surrounding soil for very stiff encasement.
settlement reduction (%)

60 4.7. Influence of encasement on load transfer into the

columns
40 0.6 m Diameter
All the earlier analyses were performed by applying
1 m Diameter
pressure directly over the top surface of the stone column
20 in order to study the effect of encasing the stone column
with geosynthetic. Further analyses were performed by
0 constructing layers of soil on top of the stone column
0 2 4 6 8 10 reinforced foundation soil to study the effect of encasement
depth of encasement (h/do)
on the load transfer into the stone column. Fig. 17 shows
Fig. 15. Influence of depth of encasement on compression of stone the schematic of the finite element mesh employed for these
column. analyses. All the analyses were performed using axisym-
metric idealisation of a cylindrical unit cell consisting of
both stone column and soil. The height of the soil layer was
pressure (kPa) varied from 1 to 5 m. The soil fill properties are listed in
0 100 200 300 400 Table 1. The construction of soil layer was simulated in the
0 analysis by constructing it in layers of 250 mm height in 25
load steps each and maximum 25 iterations per load step.
50
settlement in (mm)

100
OSC
ESC 250 kN/m
150 ESC 5000 kN/m
ESC 10000 kN/m
200
Cohesion = 20 kPa
Cohesion = 10 kPa

250

Fig. 16. Influence of the shear strength on foundation soil.

4.6. Influence of strength of foundation soil

The influence of the strength of foundation soil was

studied by performing analyses for two cohesive strength
values of 10 and 20 kPa. The analyses were performed for
two diameters of columns, 0.6 and 1 m, and encasement
stiffness of 250, 5000 and 10,000 kN/m. The load–deforma-
tion responses observed are shown in Fig. 16. It is seen that
the load capacity of ordinary stone column is very much
dependent on the cohesive strength of the surrounding clay
soil. On the other hand, the influence of the strength of
surrounding soil on the capacity of the encased stone
columns gradually decreases as the stiffness of the
geosynthetic increases. When the encasement stiffness is
increased to 10,000 kN/m, the pressure–settlement response
of encased column is practically independent of the
strength of the surrounding clay soil. As the stiffness of
the encasement increases, the lateral bulging of the stone
column reduces (Fig. 10), thereby reducing the stresses
propagated into the surrounding soil. Hence, the contribu-
tion of the surrounding soil to the stability of the encased
stone column reduces as the stiffness of the encasement Fig. 17. Schematic finite element mesh with embankment loading.
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The stress transfer into the stone column was examined in ment, the foundation soil may not be able to support any
order to study the influence of encasement on the stiffness more imposed loads. At that stage, all further imposed
of the column. A quantity termed as stress intensity factor loads are transferred into the relatively stronger column.
(SIF) is defined as the ratio between the average vertical Fig. 19 shows the comparison between the SIF values
stress in the stone column and the vertical stress developed in two different diameters of encased columns. It
corresponding to the height of the soil fill (gz). may be noted that the SIF values are higher for smaller
The SIF values at different heights of embankment diameter encased column. This could be attributed to
constructed over 1 m diameter ordinary and encased stone higher stiffness of smaller diameter column owing to
columns are shown in Fig. 18. It can be observed that SIF relatively larger confining pressures generated as compared
increases as the encasement stiffness or the embankment to larger diameter encased columns as discussed earlier.
height increases. As the encasement stiffness increases, the
overall stiffness of the encased stone column increases and
hence higher stresses are transferred to it from the 5. Summary and conclusions
embankment. Han and Gabr (2002) reported higher SIF
values for embankment piles with higher stiffness values. In this paper, we have studied the performance of stone
The results from the current investigations are in close columns encased with geosynthetic reinforcement. The
agreement with their observations. The higher SIF at larger results from the parametric studies are presented to
heights of the embankment indicates that higher percen- quantify the effect of confinement and the mechanism for
tage of embankment load is transferred into the relatively improvement in load capacity due to encasement. Based on
stronger or stiffer column as the embankment height the results obtained from this study, the following
increases. This is because at some height of the embank- conclusions are made:

2.5
OSC 2500 kN/m 1. The load capacity and stiffness of the stone column can
250 kN/m 5000 kN/m
1000 kN/m 10000 kN/m be increased by all-round encasement by geosynthetic.
stress intensity factor, SIF

By geosynthetic encasement, it is found that the stone

2 columns are confined and the lateral bulging is mini-
mised.
2. The elastic modulus of the geosynthetic encasement
1.5
plays an important role in enhancing the capacity and
stiffness of the encased columns. The confining pressures
generated in the stone columns are higher for stiffer
encasements.
1 3. The hoop tension forces developed in the encasement
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 are significant within a depth equal to approximately
height of embankment (m) twice the diameter of the stone column. The pattern of
Fig. 18. Variation in SIF with height of embankment (for 1 m diameter variation of hoop tension forces closely follows that of
stone column with various values of encasement stiffness). the lateral bulging of the column.
4. The performance of encased stone columns of smaller
diameters is superior to that of larger diameter stone
columns because of mobilisation of higher confining
3.5 stresses in larger stone column. The higher confining
stresses in the column leads to higher stiffness of smaller
diameter encased columns.
stress intesity factor, SIF

3
5. The confinement at the top portion of the stone column
2.5 (where predominant bulging occurs) is sufficient for the
improved performance of the stone column. It is
2 adequate to encase the stone column up to a depth
equal to two times the diameter of stone column to
1.5 0.6 m Diameter substantially increase its load carrying capacity.
1 m Diameter
6. The load capacity of encased columns is not as sensitive
1 to the shear strength of the surrounding soils as
0 2500 5000 7500 10000 compared to OSCs. This is especially true for higher
stone column with different encasement stiffness stiffness values of the encasement.
(kN/m) 7. The magnitude of loads transferred into the encased
Fig. 19. Influence of encasement stiffness on stress concentration of stone stone columns from the embankments can be increased
columns of 1 and 0.6 m diameter (5 m high embankment). by using stiffer encasement.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
358 S. Murugesan, K. Rajagopal / Geotextiles and Geomembranes 24 (2006) 349–358

Acknowledgements Indraratna, B., Bamunawita, C., Khabbaz, H., 2004. Numerical modeling
of vacuum preloading and field applications. Canadian Geotechnical
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The authors are thankful to the anonymous reviewers
Katti, R.K., Katti, A.R., Naik, S., 1993. Monograph to Analysis of Stone
for their meticulous review and several suggestions for Columns with and without Geosynthetic Encasement. CBIP Publica-
improving the presentation in the paper. tion, New Delhi.
Latha, G.M., Rajagopal, K., Krishnaswamy, N.R., 2006. Experimental
and theoretical investigations on geocell-supported embankments.
International Journal of Geomechanics, ASCE 6 (1), 30–35.
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