A STUDY ON RELATIVE PERFORMANCE OF COHESIONLESS SOILS AS FOUNDATION FILLS

Abstract

The soil that is selected for use at site is known as fill. The performance of this fill basically depends on type of soil, grain size distribution for cohesionless soil and plasticity for cohesive soil, and insitu density and also the amount of compacting effects supplied to the fill. In this dissertation an attempt is made to investigate the performance of cohesionless soil used as foundation fills. Here four different types of sand are taken and first of all their basic properties are examined. Then these sands are filled by same compacting effort and Load tests are carried out on these separately and pressure settlement behaviour is observed. Effort of raising water table on settlement at one fifth of ultimate load are also observed. On each type of material to different methods are used for compaction - one is compaction by tamping and other is compaction by vibration. In order to examine the Load settlement behaviour, test on 15 cm diameter plate are carried out. The results of these tests are presented and discussed. The performance of different type of sands are compared and the effect of properties of sands on their load settlement behaviour are discussed. The results of the above experimental investigations demonstrated that compacted fill, when properly constructed, can be as adequate as comparable natural soil deposits.