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Development and Improvement Effectiveness of Sand
Development and Improvement Effectiveness of Sand
com
ScienceDirect
Soils and Foundations 57 (2017) 980–987
www.elsevier.com/locate/sandf
Received 19 October 2016; received in revised form 16 June 2017; accepted 3 August 2017
Available online 11 November 2017
Abstract
The sand compaction pile (SCP) method was developed in Japan to improve soft grounds. One of the major features of the SCP
method is that it can be applied to all soil types found in Japan, from sandy to clayey soils; and therefore, it has been widely used
for the improvement of soft grounds. Recently, the SCP method has been mainly adopted as a countermeasure against liquefaction,
and its effectiveness in preventing liquefaction has been confirmed through past large earthquakes. This paper provides an outline of
the conventional SCP method, including its principle, history, equipment, and implementation, and also describes other methods derived
from the SCP method as liquefaction countermeasures. Furthermore, several examples are reported to confirm the effectiveness of the
methods through past large earthquakes.
Ó 2017 Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of The Japanese Geotechnical Society.
This is an open access article under CC BY-NC-ND license. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
1. Introduction ing that this method is one of the most reliable ground
improvement methods in Japan.
The sand compaction pile method (hereinafter abbrevi- This paper describes the principle, the history, and the
ated as the SCP method) is a method for improving soft equipment of the conventional SCP method as well as out-
grounds by means of installing well-compacted sand piles lines two other methods derived from the SCP method in
in the ground. It combines such fundamental principles accordance with the needs of the times as liquefaction
for ground improvement as densification and drainage. It countermeasures including the procedure, the equipment,
can be applied to all types of soil found in Japan, from and the material used for each method. Some cases are also
sandy to clayey soils, by commonly using a single piece shown that demonstrate the difference between an unim-
of equipment; therefore, it has been widely used for the proved ground and a ground improved by the SCP method
improvement of soft grounds. In sandy grounds, the SCP based on the degree of damage brought about by past large
method is mainly used as a countermeasure against lique- earthquakes.
faction, and its effectiveness in preventing liquefaction
has been confirmed through past large earthquakes, show- 2. Outline of SCP method
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sandf.2017.08.025
0038-0806/Ó 2017 Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of The Japanese Geotechnical Society.
This is an open access article under CC BY-NC-ND license. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)
K. Harada, J. Ohbayashi / Soils and Foundations 57 (2017) 980–987 981
soil types, i.e., sandy grounds, clayey grounds and soft clay
deposits which is typically formed at offshore sites, are
described. The principle of the SCP method for clayey
grounds is based on the theory for composite grounds pro-
posed by Murayama (1957). Composite grounds consist of
soft cohesive grounds and compacted sand piles formed
therein; the composite ground formed has high shear
strength and drainage capability owing to the presence of
the sand piles. Through the formation of these compacted
sand piles, the bearing capacity of the ground can be
increased due to ‘‘replacement effect” and ‘‘stress concen-
tration effect”. ‘‘Stress concentration” means that external
load is concentrated mainly on the sand piles, as shown
in Fig. 1(a). Furthermore, by including ‘‘drainage effect”
(see Fig. 1(a)), an increase in the stiffness of the whole
ground as well as a decrease in lateral spreading and in
consolidation settlement can be expected.
On the other hand, the principle of the SCP method for Fig. 2. Vibratory SCP equipment.
sandy grounds is primarily to decrease the void ratio and to
densify the ground as a result of the sand pile installation,
as shown in Fig. 1(b). Accordingly, the purpose of the SCP
method is to increase the bearing capacity, to decrease the
compression settlement, to prevent the occurrence of lique-
faction, and to increase horizontal resistance. For sandy
grounds, Ogawa and Ishido (1965) suggested a practical
design procedure related to the increase in density due to
the installation of sand piles.
Conversely, for soft clay deposits which are typically
encountered in offshore works, thicker sand piles are
installed into the clay at the sea bottom, as shown in
Fig. 1(c). ‘‘Forced replacement” is the major principle for
the improvement of offshore works, rather than the forma-
tion of ‘‘composite ground” where the sand piles replace
the cohesive soils. In such cases, the objectives of the
improvement are to increase the bearing capacity, to
reduce the consolidation settlement, and to increase the Fig. 3. Installation procedure for vibratory SCP method.
horizontal resistance.
2.2. Equipment and implementation process developed in the 1970s as an environment-friendly measure
with low noise and vibrations. The lattice-type deep mixing
An on-land type equipment for the vibratory SCP and method, a shear strain restraint method, was developed as
its installation procedure in a soft ground are illustrated an economical countermeasure in the 1980s.
in Figs. 2 and 3, respectively. The procedure is as follows. The SCP method was recognized as a liquefaction pre-
vention/mitigation method after its effectiveness was veri-
(1) Positioning: Set the casing pipe at the predetermined fied by many case histories during large earthquakes,
place. such as the 1978 Miyagi-ken-Oki Earthquake and the
(2) Penetration of a casing pipe: By operating the vibra- 1983 Nihonkai-Chubu Earthquake. Examples of such case
tor, penetrate the casing pipe into the ground. histories are presented later in this paper. However, the
(3) Feeding sands through a hopper: After the casing pipe drawbacks of this method are the noise and the vibrations
has reached the required depth, feed sand into the generated by the vibro-hammer. Thus, it became necessary
casing through the upper hopper. to improve the SCP method such that it would have no
(4) Drawing up the casing pipe: By drawing up the casing adverse influence on the surrounding environment. To
pipe, the sand in the pipe is forced out through the meet this demand, two new types of SCP methods, the
void by compressed air. non-vibratory SCP method (Harada et al., 2004) and the
(5) Re-driving the casing pipe: Re-drive the casing while sand injection-type SCP method (Imai et al., 2009), have
compacting the sand pile pressed out by the vibra- been developed, as explained in the next section.
tions, resulting in its enlargement.
(6) Completion: Form each compacted sand pile to reach
the ground surface by repeating the above procedure. 3.2. Methods derived from conventional SCP method
Table 1
History of liquefaction prevention.
(a) Pin rack and sprocket type (b) Rack and pinion type
Fig. 4. Main components of forced lifting/driving device.
K. Harada, J. Ohbayashi / Soils and Foundations 57 (2017) 980–987 983
(a) (b)
10cm
40cm
Casing Rod
Enlarging Enlarging
70cm 70cm
length than the one of a vibratory SCP, as shown in Figs. 3 sand into the ground through a small-sized equipment. A
and 5. The recordings of noise and vibration levels associ- mixture of sand and a fluidizing reagent is forcibly ejected
ated with the vibratory SCP and the non-vibratory SCP by pumping from the tip of the rod which is penetrated into
methods made at five sites, A to E, are shown in Fig. 6. the ground to densify the surrounding ground. To form a
It is clear from the figure that both noise and vibration dense ground, the fluidity of the ejected sand is well-
levels are greatly reduced in the non-vibratory method controlled. The fluidity gradually disappears due to the
compared with the vibratory SCP method, making it suit- combination of dehydration of the mixture and chemical
able for applications in urban areas and at sites close to process of the retarding plasticizer. Fig. 7 shows a compar-
existing structures. ison of the mechanism for enlarging the diameter of the
sand piles between (a) the vibratory/non-vibratory SCP
method and (b) the sand injection-type SCP method. The
3.2.2. Sand injection-type SCP method procedure for applying the sand injection-type SCP
The sand injection-type SCP method is a method to den- method is as follows (see Fig. 8):
sify the target ground by pumping and injecting fluidized
(1) Positioning: Set the rod at the prescribed position and
insert it into the ground.
(2) Feeding the fluidized sand through a rod: After the rod
has reached the required depth, pump out the flu-
idized sand.
Rod
Equipment
trace of rod
100
90 Performance range
Percentage finer by weight (%)
80
70
Performance range
60
50
40 Achievement of SCP
30
20
10
0
Fig. 11. Case histories verifying the effectiveness of compaction methods through past earthquakes (modified after Ohbayashi et al. (1998)).
approx.10m
0
5m Sand boil
average
SCP
8m
spacing: 1.8m 2
Sand
pile
4
Sand before
improvement
(Fill)
6 after
improvement
Sand
boil
8
10
Fig. 12. Plane and cross section of the site. Fig. 13. SPT N-values before and after improvement.
4.2. Example of quay wall backfill (Iida et al., 2005) as shown in Fig. 15. The area of improvement extends
about 30 m from the normal line of the quay wall with
Fig. 14 shows the distribution of improved and unim- the maximum pile length of 8.5 m. Traces of sand boils
proved grounds and locations where liquefaction was were observed at locations about 50 m from the quay wall
observed behind the quay wall at Nemuro Port after the along a line running roughly parallel to it. In other words,
2003 Tokachi-Oki Earthquake. The vibratory SCP method there was a gap of some 20 m between the boundary of the
was adopted at this site as a liquefaction countermeasure. improved zone and the liquefied unimproved area. In the
The improvement specifications consisted of a square following year, the 2004 Nemuro Hanto-oki Earthquake
arrangement of sand piles with spacing of 1.9 m (as = occurred near the site. In spite of the re-liquefaction of
10.6%) in Area A and 1.3 m (as = 22.7%) in Area B. The the unimproved areas, there was no damage observed at
increase in SPT N-values was from 10 to 15 at the site, the improved area.
986 K. Harada, J. Ohbayashi / Soils and Foundations 57 (2017) 980–987
A
Improved area
Area A 57m Area B 185m
1.3m×1.3m 1.9m×1.9m
13m 17m
Apron
30m
Boring before application Boring before application
and after application and after application
Boring before
application Boring after
application
50m
Road Sand boil
Asphalt pavement
No.1 No.2 No.3
A´
(A-A´ section)
approx. 50m
caisson backfill
SPT N-value
injection-type SCP method are presented, in addition to the
Depth Soil
(m) profile 00 10 20 30 conventional SCP method. Therefore, the SCP method is
now applicable for various soil types, such as sandy or
0
clayey grounds and soft clay deposits, as well as for narrow
working spaces.
2
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