RESPONSE OF INFINITE BEAMS ON STONE COLUMN IMPROVED EARTH UNDER MOVING LOADS

Abstract

In view of scarcity of land having adequate bearing capacity, geotechnical engineers face many challenges for construction of foundation of various structures on soft soils. Use of geosynthetic for reinforcing such soil is adopted as one of the measure for increasing bearing capacity and reduction in settlement along with its function as a drainage measure. Present study deals with modeling and analysis of infinite beams resting on geosynthetic reinforced granular fill overlying stone column natural occurring soft soil under moving load. The geosynthetic layer in between granular fill has been idealized as rough elastic membrane. Granular fill layer and soft soil has been represented by Pasternak shear layer and the Kelvin-Voigt body respectively. Stone columns have been represented by nonlinear Winkler springs. The nonlinear behavior of granular fill and the soft soil has been considered by means of hyperbolic constitutive relationships. Governing differential equations have been obtained and solved with the help of appropriate boundary conditions. A finite difference scheme has been employed which uses Guass-Siedal iterative technique for obtaining the response of soil foundation system. A detailed parametric study has been conducted by considering the range of values of various parameters as per Indian Railway conditions. All the results have been presented in non-dimensional form.