Ground Improvement Using Dynamic Compaction in Sabkha Deposit

Abstract

The sabkha soil spreads extensively in the Arabian Gulf Coast region. Sabkha is known as a geotechnically problematic soil because of its loose density, soft consistency, high salinity and water content, and occurrence of fine sands and clays. It is generally highly compressible and requires ground improvement for highway and railway construction. The purpose of this study is to provide a guideline for dynamic compaction to improve the bearing capacity of the coastal sabkha deposit. The ground behavior during dynamic compaction was evaluated for various compaction energy conditions using numerical analysis, and field dynamic compaction tests were also performed and compared with the numerical analysis results. It was found that the bearing capacity of sabkha deposit can be effectively improved by dynamic compaction. However, care must be taken to ensure that excessive porewater pressure is sufficiently dissipated during the application of dynamic compaction because the permeability is pretty low due to the high salt content in groundwater in the sabkha area.

Behavior of Foundations on Reinforced Sabkha Soil: A Numerical Study

“…Thus, the general bearing capacity equation can be used to predict the capacity of footings founded on sabkha as long as the footing diameter ratio to sabkha thickness is < 1. Joon-Shik, et al [10] studied the effect of dynamic compaction on bearing capacity of sabkha soil. They evaluated ground behavior during dynamic compaction for various compaction energy conditions using numerical analysis.…”

New Method to Predict Crater Depth Obtained in Dynamic Compaction

“…There are several projects that used this technique to provide soil improvement around the world, for example, USA, Canada, France, Poland, Portugal, England, Australia, UAE and others. Some examples of these projects can be seen in Mayne et al (1984), Lukas (1995), Slocombe (2013), Hamidi (2014) and Moon et al (2019). The proposed crater depth simulation method is composed of an exponential equation with two adjustment factors, a and b, and the energy is calculated based in the energy conservation principle (see Eq.…”

“…Thus, in dynamic compaction there has been a strong appreciation of numerical tools based on Finite Element methods (FEM), Finite Difference methods (MDF) and Discrete Element method (DEM) (Wang et al 2019a, b). There are works in the geotechnical literature that studied the development of craters and / or the depth of influence of the dynamic compaction technique using numerical models 1D, 2D and 3D (e.g., Lee et al 1988;Scott and Pearce 1976;Chow et al 1992;Pora ´n and Rodriguez 1992;Pan and Selby 2001;Lee and Gu 2004;Lopez-Quero ´l et al 2008;Ghassemi et al 2008;Mustafa 2010;Ghanbari and Hamidi 2015;Wang et al 2017Wang et al , 2019aDou et al 2019;Hamidi 2014;Mehdipour and Hamidi 2017;Jia et al 2018;Moon et al 2019). However, these solutions require complex and delicate models that require a large data repertoire and high processing time, which are not always available.…”

Evaluation of the Organic Soil Compressibility from In-Situ and Laboratory Tests for Road Application

“…It has distinctive organic odour and brown to black colour (Huat et al, 2014). The characteristics of peat soil are high water content, low shear strength and high compressibility (Bo et al, 2005;Khalid et al, 2015;Kumar & Jain, 2013;Majeed & Taha, 2012;Moon et al, 2019;Wong et al, 2008). In engineering practice, the classification of peat soil is based on the inspection of its structure and consistency.…”