Initial settlement of mat foundation on group of cement columns in peat - numerical analysis

Abstract

Cement columns are widely used to improve the load settlement characteristics of soft soils below shallow foundations. This paper investigates the performance of cement columns in soft peat. A series of laboratory tests were conducted on undisturbed peat for finding deformation properties. Finite element analyses were used to evaluate settlement of soft peat stabilised with floating and end- bearing cement columns using PLAXIS 3D foundation software. A mat foundation under vertical stress over treated peat was considered as a three-dimensional problem. For finite element simulation, embedded pile model was considered for the cement columns while soft soil creep model presented the behaviour of peat. In the case of floating columns settlement results from the software were compared to Brom’s analytical methods. The results indicated that the settlements were produced by the software are close to those obtained by analytical methods. On the other and the analytical methods predict slighter settlement than those by the software.