Behavior of Ordinary and Encased Stone Columns End-Bearing and Floating in Soft Clay (Numerical Model)

Stone column is used for strengthening the soil foundation under the raft. Stone column in soft clay that have undrained shear strength less than 15 kPa is not efficient due to weak lateral confinement. The encasement is used to reduce lateral confinement. The soil may be extend to 40 m such as in Port Said region so the partial penetrating column is a suitable solution of this case. In this Paper, finite element analyses were conducted with using the software PLAXIS 3D. This paper discuss column length effect on vertical settlement, excess pore pressure, and stress concentration ratio with respect to encasement.