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2D FEM Analysis of Stone Column- Supported Embankment and Studying the

Effects of Various Parameters on Its Stability Using Cam-Clay Model

Article · December 2019

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 2D FEM Analysis of Stone Column-
Supported Embankment and
Studying the Effects of Various
Parameters on Its Stability Using
Cam-Clay Model
Behzad Kalantari
Assistant Professor, Department of Civil Engineering
Faculty of Engineering Hormozgan university, Bandar Abbas (Iran)
e-mail: [email protected]

Yasaman Tavan
Master of Geotechnical student, Department of Civil Engineering,
Hormozgan University, Bandar Abbas (Iran)
e-mail: [email protected]

ABSTRACT
A two-dimensional (2D) finite element software PLAXIS was adopted in this study to estimate the
safety factor (SF) against failure of embankment over stone column-improved soft clay. In this study
the soft clay below the embankment was modeled with cam-clay model. Also the effect of column
spacing and elastic modulus of stone column was estimated based on the settlement analysis at the base
of embankment. Three models (safety factor, excess pore pressure and column layout) of
embankments were studied to find the effect of various parameters on each modeled embankment
behavior. The factors influencing the SF against failure of embankment over stone column-improved
soft clay were investigated including the size, spacing and friction angle of stone columns, cohesion of
soft clay, friction angle and height of embankment fill and also the existence of groundwater. Obtained
results from the study indicate that by increasing the elastic modulus of stone columns and also by
decreasing the column spacing lead to reduce the settlement amount. Also the existence of ground
water table results in lower SF values when compared with the cases without ground water table. Also,
the obtained results show that as each new layer of soil is placed on the embankment the existing pore
pressure tends to increase first and it then decreases by time. The decreasing process of pore pressure
continues by time and when the pore pressure is completely dissipated, the total stress becomes the
effective stress.
KEYWORDS: stone column, finite element method, settlement, embankment, soft clay

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 Vol. 24 [2019], Bund. 05 1328

INTRODUCTION
One of the geotechnical engineering problems during the embankment construction on the soft
soil is the weakness of mechanical properties of soft soil. A number of techniques are available to
overcome these difficulties that include; using reinforcement with geosynthetics, preloading, stage
construction and also stone columns. Use of stone columns below the embankments reduces the
excessive settlement, improves the stability and increases the bearing capacity of soft foundation soil
[1]. The embankment behavior by the stone columns in different fields has been studied by
researchers. Borges et al., [2], studied numerical analysis of reinforced embankment which were
stabilized by the jet grout columns. Based on their numerical studies increasing of column spacing
and the height of embankment will lead to increase settlement. Deb et al., [3,4], studied the stability
of embankment by using stone columns and geosynthetic. Also, they studied the behavior of clay that
is stabilized by stone columns while they studied the reinforced sand bed by geogrid and without
geogrid. Han et al., [5], studied a widened embankment and estimated the effect of column spacing,
region and modulus of foundation columns on embankment settlement. Zahmatkesh et al., [6], studied
the effect of soil depth to height of stone column ratio on soil settlement. Dash et al., [7], did an
experimental research for soft clay soil and used columns and sand layers as improvement factors and
concluded that the stone columns with proper spacing and length leads to increase the loading
capacity.
Yoo [8], concluded that the thickness, length and stiffness of geosynthetic, height of
embankment and area replacement ratio contribute on the stability of embankment. Chen et al., [9],
did a research about the geosynthetic-encased stone column and its failure mechanism in the soft soils
and the obtained results from the two and three dimensional modeling were compared with
experimental results. Castro et al., [10,11,12], studied consolidation and deformation around a unit
cell of stone column and its corresponding surrounding soil. Sexton and McCabe et al., [13],
investigated the effectiveness of vibro-replacement in a creep-prone clay and did a comparison of
settlement improvement factors with and without creep. Abusharar et al., [14], and Marandi et al.,
[15], studied the embankment slope stability using stone columns. In their research the SF was
evaluated under the various parameters; effect of size, spacing and the friction angle of stone column,
the height and friction angle of embankment, cohesion of soft clay and also the groundwater effect. In
Marandi research [15] SF was evaluated using fuzzy logic α-cut technique. In Mirjalili et al., [16]
research, the consolidation analysis of a large-scale embankment construction in Osaka city (Japan)
was presented. The numerical results of his research show that it is important to carefully estimate the
unequal long-term settlement for the construction of long-scale embankments. Huang et al., [17],
studied a three-dimensional coupled mechanical and hydraulic modeling to consider consolidation
and three-dimensional arrangement.

NUMERAL MODELING
This section of study shows three models (Safety factor, excess pore pressure and column
layout) of embankments in-order to find the effect of various parameters on the embankments
behavior using PLAXIS 2D software.

Safety factor
Mohr-coulomb criterion and the plain strain condition are used for modeling this process. The
embankment height is 5 meters and the subsoil is 10 meters and the columns height is 10 meters and
their diameter is 0.8 meter. The side slope is 2:1 and spacing of center to center of columns is
assumed to be 3.2 meters. Also under the subsoil a layer of sands with 2 meters height has been used.
 Vol. 24 [2019], Bund. 05 1329

Also, the level of groundwater is assumed to be the same. The soil bed and the applied material
properties used in the study are presented in Table 1.

Table 1: Material properties of the embankment, subsoil, stone column and sand
Parameter Unit Embankment fill Clay Sand Stone column
Thickness m 5 10 2 10
Unsaturated unit kN/𝑚𝑚3 18 16 18 17
weight
Porosity - 0.25 0.25 0.25 0.25
Cohesion kPa 0 20 0 0
Friction angle ° 32 0 30 38

Figure 1: Designed model used in the study

(a) (b)
Figure 2: Critical surface of stone column-supported embankment: (a) with groundwater (b)
without groundwater
 Vol. 24 [2019], Bund. 05 1330

Excess pore pressure

This model consists of embankment, soft clay and stone column. For soft clay and embankment,
Cam-Clay model is used and stone column is modeled by linear elastic. The height of embankment is
2 meters and height of soft clay is 6 meters. The diameter of stone column is 1.2 meters and the
diameter of unit cell is 4.3 meters. The water level is the same for the clay soil. The axisymmetric
cylindrical unit cell is used in the analysis. The applied material properties are presented in Table 2.

Table 2: properties of the soft clay and embankment fill.

λ κ φ(°) γ(kN/𝐦𝐦𝟑𝟑 ) 𝐤𝐤 𝐱𝐱 𝐤𝐤 𝐲𝐲 (m/s)
Soft clay 0.22 0.02 0.25 17 10−9 10−9
Embankment 0.03 0.005 0.3 20 - -
fill

The parameters used are indicated in Table 2 (λ, slope of normal consolidation line and critical
state line; κ, slope of swelling and recompression line; φ, friction angle; γ, unit weight; 𝑘𝑘𝑥𝑥 and 𝑘𝑘𝑦𝑦 ,
coefficient of permeability in horizontal and vertical directions respectively). A tensile stiffness of
6000 kN/m is adopted for the geosynthetic [2]. The stone column is considered with an elastic
modulus of 55 Mpa and a coefficient of permeability of 2×10−10 m/s. Also, the embankment
construction is completed in an overall time of 14 days.

Figure 3: Designed model used in the study

Fig. 4 indicates the variation of settlement at the embankment base during construction and after
construction as well. As the results in Fig. 4 indicate, variation of settlement in soft soil is more than
the stone column. Also, the results show that, the settlement amount is practically uniform on the
column, which does not happen on the soft soil and where it increases with the radial distance from
the column.
 Vol. 24 [2019], Bund. 05 1331

(a)

(b)
Figure 4: Settlement at the embankment base, for several stages: (a) during construction; (b)
after construction

Figs. 5 and 6 show the distribution of excess pore pressure at several stages for the construction
and post-construction periods, respectively. During construction, due to the practical un-drained
loading of the soft soil and stone column, the excess pore pressure increases with the embankment
height. After construction, and close to 566th weeks, variation of excess pore pressure is not
observed.
 Vol. 24 [2019], Bund. 05 1332

(a) (b) (c) (d)

Figure 5: Excess pore pressure at the several stage during construction period: (a) 1/2 week;
(b) 1week; (c) 1.5 weeks; (d) 2 weeks(end of construction)

(a) (b) (c) (d)

Figure 6: Excess pore pressure at the several stage during construction period: (a) 2 week;
(b) 3 weeks; (c) 9 weeks; (d) 566 weeks
 Vol. 24 [2019], Bund. 05 1333

Column layout
The third model consists of embankment, stone columns and soft clay. The height of
embankment is 1.8 meters. The height of stone columns is 17 meters and the thickness of soft
clay is 15 meters. The diameter of stone columns is 0.8 meters. Below the soft clay there is a
2 meters of silt layer. The traffic was simulated and assumed by applying an equivalent
static, distributed pressure of 12 kPa on the embankment’s crest. The applied material
properties are presented in Table 3.

Table 3: Modified Cam-Clay of soft clay and silt.

Parameters Symbol Soil type
Soft clay Soft clay Silt
Case 1 Case 2
Soil model MCC MCC MCC
Slope of elastic swelling line κ 0.051 0.036 0.006
Slope of normal consolidation line λ 0.36 0.36 0.12
Frictional constant M 0.98 0.98 1.2
Poisson ratio υ 0.2 0.2 0.33
Permeability(×10−12 m2 /Pa s) kw 0.06342 0.06342 6.3420

Figure 7: Designed model used in the study

For this modeling two different conditions were considered. For first condition κ/λ = 1/7 and for
the second condition κ/λ = 1/10 were assumed. Fig. 8 shows the effect of κ/λ ratio on settlement
amounts. This settlement was obtained from two various points from the assumed model. As it is
 Vol. 24 [2019], Bund. 05 1334

shown from this figure, decreasing the κ/λ leads to decrease the settlement amount at these points.
Also settlement amounts of soft clay are more than the stone column.

(a)

(b)
Figure 8: Settlement-time curves: (a) κ/λ=1/7; (b) κ/λ=1/10

To investigate the influence of column layout, three possible layout of column were considered,
which results in three cases; case a, case b and case c, as shown in Fig. 9. Case “a” had column
spacing of 2 m, case “b” had column spacing of 1.5 m and case “c” had column spacing of 1 m in the
central potion and 2 m under the slopes. In numerical modeling, embankment fill and the bedrock
were modeled as elastic materials whereas the bedrock was negligible [18]. Columns were modeled
as the Mohr-Coulomb failure criterion while the soft soil was modeled using Cam-Clay model. The
materials properties of the soft clay were selected based on the values of case 2 presented in Table 3.
According to the verification, κ/λ=1/10 was used in this numerical study.
 Vol. 24 [2019], Bund. 05 1335

(a)

(b)

(c)
Figure 9: Existing column-supported embankments. (a) Case a, (b) Case b, (c) Case c

Fig. 10 shows the effect of column layout on settlement at the embankment base at the end of
consolidation. The results in this Fig. indicate that decreasing the column spacing from 2 m to 1.5 m
 Vol. 24 [2019], Bund. 05 1336

has reduced the settlement amounts. Also the column spacing in the central portion to 1 m (case c)
has reduced the settlement amounts more than case b.

Figure 10: Settlement at the base of existing embankment at the end of consolidation

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

In this section the results of various parameters affecting the embankment stability including
height of embankment fill, embankment and stone columns friction angles, spacing of stone column,
size of stone column, cohesion of soft soil and parameters affecting on settlement amounts of
embankment including the elastic modulus of stone column, stone column diameter and also column
spacing are discussed.

Influence of height of embankment fill and stone column

The height’s effects of embankment fill and stone column on SF are presented in Fig. 11 and 12.
The results in Fig. 11 show that increasing the embankment height leads the SF to decrease. Also, the
results shown in Fig. 12 indicate that as the stone column heights are increased, the SF values
increase. Also the water existence reduces the SF values in two cases.
 Vol. 24 [2019], Bund. 05 1337

Figure 11: Influence of height of embankment

t
Figure 12: Influence of height of stone column

Influence of friction angle of embankment fill and stone column

Fig. 13 and 14 show the influence of embankment and stone column friction angles on the SF
values. The results shown on Fig. 12 indicate that the increasing of embankment friction angle will
lead to the SF increase too. For angles between 25 to 30 degrees, the SF is increased with higher slope
and after the friction angel is increased to 30 degrees, then it tends to have a lighter slope angle. The
results from Fig. 13 indicate that by increasing stone column friction angle, the SF values are
increased as well. The SF with the groundwater presence condition has a lower rate which means that
the soil resistance is reduced. It can also be concluded that the friction angle of stone column increase
has enhanced the SF values.

Figure 13: Influence of friction angle of embankment fill

 Vol. 24 [2019], Bund. 05 1338

.
Figure 14: Influence of friction angle of stone column

Influence of spacing and size of stone column

The effect of stone column spacing and its thickness have been shown in Figs. 15 and 16. The
results shown in Fig 15 show that, increasing the stone columns spacing leads to decreasing the SF. In
this section, the spacing between the columns changes from 2.6 to 8 meters. The results indicate that
by increasing the spacing, SF is reduced. For column thickness, different rates between 0.4 and 1.2
meters have been assumed. It was observed that increasing thickness will increase the SF.

Figure 15: Influence of spacing of stone column

 Vol. 24 [2019], Bund. 05 1339

.4
Figure 16: Influence of size of stone column

Influence of cohesion of soft soil

Fig. 17 shows the effect of cohesion of clay soil on the SF values of embankment.. The results
shown in Fig. 17, indicate that the benefit of cohesion of soft clay becomes less significant when the
cohesion was higher than 25 kPa. Because the slip surface develop was shallower in the improved
foundation and the contribution of the foundation become less important [14].

Figure 17: Influence of cohesion of soft soil

Influence of elastic modulus of stone column

Fig. 18 shows the influence of the elastic modulus of the column on settlement amounts at the
embankment base, and on the soft soil and also on the stone column, at the end of consolidation. The
results presented in Fig 18 show that settlements will reduce with the increase of stiffness of stone
column, both on the column and also on the soft soil too. However this reduction remains virtually
constant for higher values. This means that the effect of the elastic modulus of column is only
significant when the material of column has low stiffness.
 Vol. 24 [2019], Bund. 05 1340

Figure 18: Influence of the elastic modulus of stone column on the settlement at the
embankment base, on soft soil and column at the end of consolidation

Influence of embankment height

Fig. 19, shows the effect of embankment height on the settlement at the embankment base, on the
soft soil and also on the stone column as well, at the end of consolidation. The results indicate that,
settlements increase with the applied load on the foundation, materialized by the embankment height.

Figure 19: Influence of the embankment height on the settlement at the embankment base,
on soft soil and column, at the end of consolidation

Influence of spacing and diameter of stone column on

settlement
Fig. 20 and 21 show the influence of column spacing and its diameter on the settlement amounts
at the embankment base, on the soft soil and also on the stone columns, at the end of consolidation
process. In order to evaluate the influence of column spacing, five different diameter values of the
unit cell were considered; 3.1 m, 4.3 m, 5.2 m, 6.7 m and 7.6 m. The results indicate that settlement
amounts increase with the column spacing. The increase is more significant on the soft soil compared
with the stone column top section. Fig. 22 shows the effect of stone columns diameters, and the
results in this Fig shows that, the settlement amounts decrease with the increase of diameter of the
stone column.
 Vol. 24 [2019], Bund. 05 1341

Figure 20: Influence of the column spacing on the settlement at the embankment base, on
soft soil and column, at the end of consolidation

Figure 21: Influence of the stone column diameter on the settlement at the embankment base,
on soft soil and column, at the end of consolidation

CONCLUSIONS
In this study, finite element method (PLAXIS 2D, Cam-Clay method) is carried out for stone
column-supported embankment stability analysis, and the following results are concluded:
(1) The height of embankment, friction angle of stone columns, the column thickness and
heights, the cohesion of clay soil and also the friction angle of embankment affect on the SF values.
Also Water existence will reduce the SF and also it will develop the slip surface.
(2) When the stiffness of the column increases, settlements are reduced, both on the columns as
well as on the soft soil. However, this reduction is only significant when the elastic modulus of
column has low values, but is remaining virtually constant for higher values.
(3) Even though, the stone columns do not increase safety factor of embankment by higher rates,
but they have a considerable effect on reducing the embankment's slip surface.
 Vol. 24 [2019], Bund. 05 1342

(4) Increasing the cohesion of soft soil and friction angle of embankment will increase the
stability. The soft soil cohesion has increased the SF rate by 4% at the saturated condition when
compared to the effect of embankment friction angle. Also increasing the embankment height will
cause the stability of the embankment to be reduced.
(5) As each new soil layer is placed on the embankment, the existing pore pressure tends to
increase first, and it then decreases by time. Pore pressure decreasing process continues by time.
When the pore pressure is completely dissipated, the total induced stress becomes the effective stress.

REFERENCES
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© 2019 ejge
 Vol. 24 [2019], Bund. 05 1344

Editor’s note.
This paper may be referred to, in other articles, as:
Behzad Kalantari and Yasaman Tavan: “2D FEM analysis of stone column-
supported embankment and studying the effects of various parameters on its
stability using Cam-Clay model” ” Electronic Journal of Geotechnical
Engineering, 2019 (24.05), pp 1327-1344. Available at ejge.com.

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