Numerical analysis to study the effect of partial replacement on the bearing capacity of soft clay soil by using PLAXIS.

Replacement of soft clay soil technique is commonly utilized in the construction practices and engineers had proven that it may be one of the effective techniques. In addition, a number of researchers have already thought about the mechanisms of soil removal and replacement. The present research investigates efficiency of remove and replace approaches for the mitigations of the soft clays in the fact that analyses have been based upon the basic principles of stress-deformation. The main objective of the present work is to investigate the effectiveness of the replacement method. The finite element software PLAXIS was implemented in the present study in order to analyze the behavior of shallow footing. The present investigation considers the variation in replacement thickness, replacement width and the relative density of sand used in replacement. A total of 33 models represent two groups were performed. The first group consists of 16 models by using medium sand for soil replacement; the second group consists of 16 models by using dense sand for replacement of the soil both of 2 groups have been performed with various depth and width values of the replacement, besides one untreated soil model. Soil's bearing capacity that has been enhanced by the soil replacement was measured. It has been noticed that the capability of the replacement of the soft soil by the sandy soil for improvement of footing bearing capacity on the soil had shown a maximal improvement degree that has been accomplished in the case where soil has been treated through partially replacing it with the dimensions B soil replacement (B represents footing width) with an extension of (b=1.50-2.0) all the sides to a (1-2) B depth. The approach of the soil has a higher effectiveness in the improvement of bearing capacity when increasing replacement width in comparison to an increase of replacement depth. It has been found that bearing capacity of the footing is highly increased by increasing relative density of sand by compacting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]