• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.17 no.3
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• pp.5-12
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• 2016

Stone column is the method that replace soft ground such as weak clay and loose sand with gravel or crushed stone which has relatively high stiffness and low compressive. Stone column increases bearing capacity of the soft ground, reduces settlement, produces ground improvement effect by consolidation drain, and is effective to prevent soil liquefaction in sandy ground during an earthquake. Stone column has been used in many civil works, and has recorded quite a lot of construction achievement internationally, but there is no standardized settlement calculation method yet. Therefore, in this study, the applicability of the existing theoretical equations were evaluated through comparison and analysis to predict a reasonable settlement of the Stone column. Consequently, Hook's law formula was verified to be the most close to numerical analysis.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.7 no.2
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• pp.133-148
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• 2014

An experimental study is carried out to evaluate the performance of Lime mortar-Well graded Soil (Lime-WS) columns for the improvement of soft soils. Tests are conducted on a column of 100 mm diameter and 600 mm length surrounded by soft soil in different area ratios. Experiments are performed either with the entire area loading to evaluate the load - settlement behavior of treated grounds and only a column area loading to find the limiting axial stress of the column. A series of tests are carried out in soaking condition to investigate the influence of moisture content on the load - settlement behavior of specimens. In order to compare the behavior of Lime-WS columns with Conventional Stone (CS) columns as well as Geogrid Encased Stone (GES) columns, the behavior of these columns have been also considered in the present study. Remarkable improvement in the behavior of soft soil is observed due to the installation of Lime-WS columns and the performance of these columns is significantly enhanced by increasing the area ratio. The results show that CS columns are not suitable as a soil improvement technique for extremely soft soils and should be enhanced by encasing the column or replaced by rigid stone columns.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.2 no.3
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• pp.71-80
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• 2001

The quantitative analysis of bearing capacity with stone column-mat is not ease because the bearing capacity of stone column is affected by so many parameters. The bearing capacity of stone column is mainly governed by horizontal resistance along the interface with soil. Also, this foundation system is affected by geometric factors such as column spacing, embedment ratio and failure surface inclination. Therefore, in this study, critical length and the effect of failure surface inclination was studied with single and group end bearing stone columns by loading tests. Results of model tests are compared to the present theoretical methods and are examined with FEM analysis.

• Geomechanics and Engineering
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.329-337
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• 2019

This paper presents an experimental investigation about visualization of bulging development of geosynthetic-encased stone column (GESC) based on the digital image correlation (DIC) technique and transparent soil. Visual model tests on GESC and ordinary stone column (OSC) were carried out. In order to delete the warping effect resulting from transparent soil and experiment setup, a modification for experiment results was performed. The bulging development process of the GESC and the displacement field of the surrounding soil were measured. By comparing with the existing experimental and theoretical results, it demonstrates that the model test system developed for studying the continuous bulging development of GESC is suitable. The current test results show that the bulging depth of GESC ranges from 1.05 to 1.40 times the diameter of GESC. The influence depth of GESC bulging on surrounding soil displacement is 0~3 the times diameter of GESC.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.115-124
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• 2012

The responses of stone column-improved ground under seismic loading are investigated using a series of 1g shaking table tests. These tests show similar results to those of one dimensional numerical models for stone column-improved ground based on Baez's assumption on the soil and stone-column interaction. The experimental and numerical results show that the stone column can prevent large shear deformations incurred due to cyclic softening in clayey deposits, but they also show that the surface acceleration in the improved clayey deposits may amplify more than that in unimproved clayey deposits when subjected to short periodic seismic motions.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.4 no.2
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• pp.65-76
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• 2003

Stone column is a soil improvement method and can be applicable for loose sand or weak cohesive soil. Since the lack of sand, stone column seems one of the most adaptable approach for poor ground as a soil improvement technique. However, this method was not studied for practical application. In this paper, the bearing capacity of single stone column at the Gaduk, Ulsan and Gwangyang under the bulging and general shear failure mode were compared with those of the suggested formulas. Especially, a test result of single stone column at the Busan area by static load was compared with the bearing capacity of suggested formulas. The analysis results showed that there were not much bearing capacity differences among those suggested bearing capacity formulas. However, the bearing capacity by static load test was almost double of those with suggested formula. The result also showed that the undrained shear strength was the most important parameter for the bearing capacity estimation of stone column.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.5 no.1
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• pp.55-64
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• 2004

Stone column is a soil improvement method and can be applicable for loose sand or weak cohesive soil. Since the lack of sand in korea, stone column seems one of the most adaptable approach for poor ground as a soil improvement technique. However, this method was not studied for practical application. In this paper, the most affective design parameters for the bearing capacity of stone column were studied. The parametric study of major design factors for single stone column was carried out under the bulging and general shear failure condition, respectively. Especially, a test result of single stone column by static load was compared with the bearing capacity values of suggested formulas. The analysis result showed that the ultimate bearing capacity by the formula was much less than the measured value by the static load test. Especially, the result of the parametric study under general shear failure condition showed that the bearing capacity has big difference between each suggested formulas with the variation of the major design parameters. Therefore, the result of this study can be appliable for the future stone column project.

• Journal of the Korean Geotechnical Society
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• v.24 no.11
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• pp.35-41
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• 2008

Stone columns, one of the soft ground improvement techniques, are being used for not only accelerating consolidation but also increasing bearing capacity of soft grounds. In this study, in order to observe the stress distribution characteristics which are one of the important factors to estimate the settlement reduction of the soft ground, lab-scale experiments were performed in stone column reinforced clay ground. The stress distribution ratio of stone column decreased with the lapse of time after surcharge loading but increased as the stiffness of clay deposit increases. It shows that the modified Baumann and Bauer's solution, which is able to easily predict the stress distribution ratio of stone column reinforced soft ground, exhibits reasonable agreement with the measured data.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2009.03a
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• pp.84-90
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• 2009

An integrity testing for stone columns was attempted using crosshole S-wave logging. The method is conceptionally quite similar to the crosshole sonic logging (CSL) for drilled piers. The critical difference in the logging is the use of s-wave rather than p-wave, which is used in CSL, because s-wave is the only wave sensing the stiffness of slower unbounded materials than water. An electro-mechanical source, which can generate reversed S-wave signals, was utilized in the logging. The stone column was delineated from the S-wave travel times across the stone column, and taking S-wave velocities of the crushed stone and surrounding soil into account. The volume calculated from the diametrical variance delineated is very close to the actual quantity of the stone filled.

• Proceedings of the Korean Geotechical Society Conference
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• 2006.10a
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• pp.291-311
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• 2006

The acceleration of consolidation by stone columns was mostly analysed within the framework of a basic unit cell model (i.e. a cylindrical soil body around a column). A method of converting the axisymmetric unit cell into the equivalent plane-strain model would be required for two-dimensional numerical modelling of multi-column field applications. This paper proposes two practical simplified conversion methods to obtain the equivalent plane-strain model of the unit cell, and investigates their applicability to multi-column reinforced ground. In the first conversion method, the soil permeability is matched according to an analytical equation, whereas in the second method, the column width is matched based on the equivalence of column area. The validity of these methods is tested by comparison with the numerical results of unit-cell simulations and with the field data from an embankment case history. The results show that for the case of linear-elastic material modelling, both methods produce reasonably accurate long-term consolidation settlements, whereas for the case of elasto-plastic material modelling, the second method is preferable as the first one gives erroneously lower long-term settlements, where plastic yielding of stone column are ignored.