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Geobamtile

Soft ground engineering construction is an important field within the civil engineering realm in Malaysia. In view of the prevailing geology, many of the infrastructural development face the dilemma of attempting to construct over soft ground. The concept of devising a method to support heavy engineering construction over soft to even very soft ground safely and economically has received tremendous attention. In view of the number of technical and practical advantages the currently invented method has over many currently available ground improvement methods, it has the potential to become a very attractive alternative method in minimizing the total and differential settlement of heavy structures construct over soft to very soft ground. Additionally, it is particularly useful in areas where depth of softness extends to a great depth where some existing ground improvement techniques may be rendered either non-functional or simply too costly to adopt.

 

The usual practical problems associated with construction over soft ground are settlement of ground and the structure built above it. Essentially they are the exceptionally large total settlement and the differential settlement occurred at different parts of the ground and so is structure built upon it. In real life, the latter is usually the major concern and is more perturbing and detrimental to the structure than the former. While there are quite a number of ground improvement methods available (e.g. surcharging with prefabricated wick drain, piled-embankment, polystyrene blocks and dynamic compaction etc.), more new methods/techniques including the present one are expected to emerge in the future. Despite variety, the existing ones can be broadly grouped into: i) Consolidation, ii) Compaction, and iii) Reinforcement-based, dependent on nature of the soil conditions in existence. Furthermore, despite availability of many methods, each of them seems to have its own practical limitation during implementation, perhaps due to its sophistication and thus its cost accordingly.

The novelty of this technique lies in the creation of a most cost-effective platform through the use of various industrial wastes such as: used-tyres, discarded plastic bags, mineral water bottles, polystyrene products etc. or virtually any waste that is light. All these ‘wastes’ when use in conjunction with lightweight concrete (which density can be varied as wish) they can be readily turned into a buoyant platform where its buoyancy can be exploited advantageously to counterbalance, and thus minimizing the level of vertical stress that might otherwise be applied to the soft subsoil below. Obviously, this will further mitigate any possible soil settlement in the soft ground, may it be total or differential. Environmentally, the utilization of these discarded wastes will not only result in tremendous cost savings but also doing great justification to our environment via meaningful recycling/reuse/reduction of some of the most notorious wastes such as used-tyres, plastic bags and bottles which constitute enormous environmental hazards where the problem is compounded by their sheer volume produces each day and durability. For these reasons, the current technique can be rightfully blended as a ‘green technology‘ as it satisfies all requisite green technology criteria.

The novelty of this technique lies in the creation of a most cost-effective platform through the use of various industrial wastes such as: used-tyres, discarded plastic bags, mineral water bottles, polystyrene products etc. or virtually any waste that is light. All these ‘wastes’ when use in conjunction with lightweight concrete (which density can be varied as wish) they can be readily turned into a buoyant platform where its buoyancy can be exploited advantageously to counterbalance, and thus minimizing the level of vertical stress that might otherwise be applied to the soft subsoil below. Obviously, this will further mitigate any possible soil settlement in the soft ground, may it be total or differential. Environmentally, the utilization of these discarded wastes will not only result in tremendous cost savings but also doing great justification to our environment via meaningful recycling/reuse/reduction of some of the most notorious wastes such as used-tyres, plastic bags and bottles which constitute enormous environmental hazards where the problem is compounded by their sheer volume produces each day and durability. For these reasons, the current technique can be rightfully blended as a ‘green technology‘ as it satisfies all requisite green technology criteria.

The current method makes use of the principle whereby the lightweight concrete platform filled/stuffed with interconnected used-tyres and a mixture of light discarded industrial wastes is constructed on top of geotextile, a stable buoyant platform of sizable area capable of reducing the magnitude of vertical stress that might be imposed by, say, highway embankment, onto the soft subsoil soil below and thus curtail the amount of total settlement that might otherwise occur. The lightness and buoyancy are the contributory factors. Besides, the fact that the same platform is capable of distributing the already reduced applied stress uniformly over its entire surface and the soil below would mean differential settlement is significantly arrested. Figure 1 below illustrates the principle of the invention to show how settlements are minimized through larger area provided to lower stress level and effect more even distribution of stresses.The current method makes use of the principle whereby the lightweight concrete platform filled/stuffed with interconnected used-tyres and a mixture of light discarded industrial wastes is constructed on top of geotextile, a stable buoyant platform of sizable area capable of reducing the magnitude of vertical stress that might be imposed by, say, highway embankment, onto the soft subsoil soil below and thus curtail the amount of total settlement that might otherwise occur. The lightness and buoyancy are the contributory factors. Besides, the fact that the same platform is capable of distributing the already reduced applied stress uniformly over its entire surface and the soil below would mean differential settlement is significantly arrested. Figure 1 below illustrates the principle of the invention to show how settlements are minimized through larger area provided to lower stress level and effect more even distribution of stresses.

The currently established methods used for construction over soft ground today often showed themselves to be technologically complicated, sophisticated and costly, and they may not deliver the performance perceived during the design and accordingly do not produce the desirable results anticipated. The current technique compared favorably with many, if not all, existing methods in terms of economy, simplicity of technique and method of construction. The use of recycled tyres, on other hand, will qualify the proposed technology to be green and sustainable. The skilful design and deployment of self compacting lightweight concrete/light wastes form ‘the light core’ will afford buoyancy effect to the system to offset part of the vertical stress applied by the construction above onto the soft ground, a distinct advantage and novelty of the current technology.

Some notable areas of applications possible would be to support embankments (for embankments for flood control, railway tracks etc.), construction over soft to very soft grounds e.g. peaty swamp, coastal and riverine soft areas that could have underlined by very soft marine clays, support a building platform for subsequent construction to be implemented successfully safely over soft ground encountered, construct floating platform such as pontoon for jetty and wave breakers etc.

Download PDF

GEOBAMTILE – Innovative Soft Ground Engineering (KCH)

Geobamtile for All Types of Soft Ground (2nd)

GEOBAMTILE – Creatively Used in Reclamation

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