Uniaxial compression behavior of geotextile encased stone columns

The bearing capacity and failure mechanism of encased stone columns are affected by many factors such as encasement length, relative density, strength and stiffness of the encasement material. In soft soils where surrounding soil pressure is low, especially in the top section, the stone columns may be close to a uniaxial compression state, where the uniaxial compression strength controls the bearing capacity of the stone columns. A series of large-scale triaxial tests on ordinary stone columns and uniaxial tests on geotextile encased stone columns have been performed. The stone columns were 300 mm in diameter and 600 mm in height. Samples of four different relative densities, and five types of geotextiles were used in the tests to study the effect of initial void ratio and encasing materials on the uniaxial compression behavior of the stone columns. The results show the uniaxial compressive strength of the encased stone columns is not affected by the initial void ratio but mainly by the tensile strength of the encasing geotextiles. The stress strain curves of the encased stone columns under uniaxial loading condition are nearly liner before failure, which is similar to the tensile behavior of the geotextiles.