Investigation of Stone Columns’ Role in Reinforcing Coastal Embankments Using Plaxis

Abstract

The issue of optimizing reinforcing factors in stabilization of the stone slopes has constantly been of interest to geo-technique and geo-mechanic researchers due to great expenses of such operations, and instability and slides of these slopes owing to lack of enough reinforcement. In this study, are investigated the numerical and schematic role of stone in reinforcement of coastal embankments. Thereby, sample reinforced and non-reinforced embankments are modeled, and their function is compared under the same loading, thus settlements are an indicator of instability. The comparison of two embankments proves that critical displacement in reinforced embankments occurs less and in a larger distance from surface. In general, stone columns reduce function of displacement through dispersing stress and expansion of failure wedge. The results revealed that reinforcement of embankment reduces vertical displacement (39%) and horizontal displacement (56%).