Optimal Design of Rigid Inclusions and Stone Columns

Using Multiobjective Optimization

Luan Nguyen1

Abstract: Ground improvement adopting stone columns or rigid inclusions has become popular in engineering practice as it can be more
economical under certain design criteria. In typical designs of either stone columns or rigid inclusions, the column diameter, column length,
and grid spacing are three main parameters that affect the costs and performance of the improved ground. This work is concerned with
achieving an optimal design for these two ground improvement methods. The design of the three main design parameters is subject to
optimization using a multiobjective optimization algorithm with respect to minimizing the construction cost of the soil improvement system.
We explain how the semiautomated design optimization works in connection with the considered calculation method used for the design
and how execution constraints, if required, can be incorporated in the design workflow. Through the use of Priebe’s method and
(ASIRI) recommendations for the calculation of stone columns and rigid inclusions, respectively, the usefulness of the presented design
optimization approach for each of the two ground improvement methods is demonstrated. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)GM.1943-5622.0002623.
© 2022 American Society of Civil Engineers.

Introduction
The construction of heavy structures, such as buildings, liquid or
gas tanks, or embankments, on soft soils requires either deep foun-
dations, such as piles, to transfer loads to deeper bearable soil de-
posits or improvement of the weak soil layers to increase their
bearing capacity. The latter family of methods, known as soil im-
provement techniques, is of concern in the presented work. One
commonly used method for soil improvement involves placing re-
inforcement in the soft soil layers to increase the bearing capacity
of the ground and, at the same time, reduce settlement. These
soil improvement techniques include stone columns (SCs), rigid in-
clusions (RIs), jet grouting, and other deep soil mixing (DSM) tech-
niques, such as cutter soil mixing (CSM) and mixed-in-place (MIP)
methods. In general, soil improvement is preferred over deep foun-
dations, as there are advantages in construction costs and time.
Vibroreplacement or vibrodisplacement with SCs is commonly
used to improve noncompactable cohesive soil. The installed verti-
cal SCs not only help in increasing bearing capacity and reducing
settlement but may also act as vertical drains, which accelerate con-
solidation by allowing excess pore pressure to dissipate more easily.
Allowing pore pressure dissipation can also mitigate liquefaction in
granular soils (Seed and Booker 1977). Considerations for modeling,
including use of the finite-element method of SCs, are discussed in
Castro (2017). Advancements in numerical modeling with such
methods as finite difference or finite elements and discrete elements
(Yoo and Kim 2009; Indraratna et al. 2015; Gu et al. 2017; Tan et al.
2021) have helped to better reveal the behavior of SCs in various
soils and subject to different loading conditions. SCs can be ordinary
or encased by geotextiles (Simon 2012). An encasement of SCs is
needed when the host soil is very soft, i.e., the shear strength of
1
BAUER Spezialtiefbau GmbH, BAUER-St. 1, 86529 Schrobenhausen,
Germany. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9005-0172. Email: luan.th
.nguyen@gmail.com
Note. This manuscript was submitted on January 22, 2022; approved
on July 30, 2022; published online on <PubMonth 00, 0000>. Discussion
period open until <DisMonth 00, 0000>; separate discussions must be sub-
mitted for individual papers. This paper is part of the International Journal
of Geomechanics, © ASCE, ISSN 1532-3641.
the weak natural soil is not sufficient to act against lateral bulging
of the aggregate column.
RIs, also called controlled modulus columns, are different from
SCs in their relatively high stiffness elements. They are similar to
unreinforced piles, regarding functionality. End bearing and skin
friction of the inclusions are to carry a large portion of the surcharge
load, which is transferred to the inclusions via the arching effect oc-
curring within the load transfer platform (LTP) above the column
heads. The remaining surcharge load is carried by the soil itself.
The existence of a well-compacted granular LTP layer instead of
a direct structural connection between piles and the ground slab dis-
tinguishes RIs from piled raft foundations. The isolation between
foundation elements and the superstructure provides protection
mechanisms under earthquake loads (Pecker 2004). If necessary,
the LTP layer can be reinforced by geotextiles or geogrids to resist
loads induced by lateral spreading of, e.g., high earth dams or em-
bankments (Klobe 2020). RIs are preferably used where the com-
petent soil stratum is not at a shallow depth or where the
cohesive soil is very or extremely soft.
In the presented work, two design problems of ground improve-
ment for SCs and RIs are studied. A critical aspect in designing such
ground improvement systems is to choose the right combination of
the design parameters (e.g., column length, grid pattern and spacing,
column diameter) for a design solution to meet serviceability require-
ments (e.g., a prescribed level of absolute or differential settlements)
and to be cost-efficient. For RIs, the ultimate-limit-state design crite-
ria (e.g., column strength) depend on the column type, column spac-
ing, column diameter, and external loads. This sort of optimization
task can be tedious for a geotechnical designer because the manual
optimization work involves repeated evaluations of many feasible
combinations of the design parameters. Moreover, a manual iterative
search for an optimal cost-efficient solution often involves a great
amount of work with little improvement and, therefore, is not
often systematically carried out in engineering practice. Experience-
based design can help greatly in finding a design solution which,
however, is often suboptimal.
The importance of optimizing the design has been raised for sys-
tems with complex soil–structure interactions, such as piled raft
foundation, by parametric studies (Cunha et al. 2001; Reul and

© ASCE 1 Int. J. Geomech.

Randolph 2004). Although not a common practice, numerical opti-
mization has been demonstrated to work well for geotechnical de-
sign. Meier (2019) used particle swarm optimization (PSO) to
optimize the positions and angles of ground anchors for the design
of an excavation pit supported by ground anchors. Phutthananon
et al. (2021) adopted a genetic algorithm to optimize the design
of conventional and T-shape deep cement mixing columns for
the improvement of soft soil under an embankment using a re-
sponse surface method to build a surrogate model based on data
points generated by finite-element evaluations. The use of the re-
sponse surface model accelerates the optimization run time. Chen
et al. (2021) proposed the use of a variant of a genetic algorithm
for the settlement-based cost optimization of a rigid inclusion sys-
tem, called a geogrid-reinforced pile-supported foundation, under
an embankment. To achieve quick evaluations of the settlement,
the authors used a kriging-based surrogate model built by fitting
data generated by finite-element calculations.
Many researchers have worked on algorithm-based design opti-
mization of pile group and piled raft foundations. The interactions
between soil, piles, and the foundation slab, and the finite dimen-
sions of the foundation, makes modeling of the full foundation sys-
tem necessary. Such sophisticated full system modeling provides,
moreover, the possibility to subject a whole system to optimization.
Leung et al. (2010) used a so-called pattern function to parameter-
ize pile lengths subject to optimization. Kim et al. (2001) optimized
the arrangement of piles in piled raft foundations, with the objective
of minimizing differential settlement. Chan et al. (2009) used a
modified genetic algorithm to optimize pile groups by minimizing
the total concrete volume of the pile group. Design solutions are
subject to optimization constraints that respect serviceability re-
quirements. Nakanishi and Takewaki (2013) optimized the total
length of piles in a piled raft foundation using a sequential linear
programming method with an adaptive step length and controlled
the resulting settlement by applying constraint rules in the optimi-
zation process. Topology optimization was demonstrated for the
design optimization of shallow foundations (Seitz and Grabe
2016). However, its use in practice is not yet well adopted because
of the need for unconventional methods for construction.
The work in the aforementioned articles follows a single-
objective approach for optimization. Using this approach, one
can either build the objective as a function of, e.g., concrete volume
or total pile length, which is to be minimized, while serviceability
limits, such as the total and differential settlements, are set as opti-
mization constraints. It is noted that the role of system performance
and construction cost can be exchanged: system performance (total
or differential settlement) as objective and construction cost (con-
crete volume or total pile length) as design constraint, or vice
versa. Since the relation between construction cost and system per-
formance is competitive by nature, it is more natural and advanta-
geous to formulate the design optimization problem simultaneously
for a number of objectives. Kinzler et al. (2007) introduced, per-
haps for the first time, in detail, the use of multiobjective optimiza-
tion in geotechnical design with an application for pile group
design. Deb and Dhar (2011) used a nondominated sorting genetic
algorithm for the optimization of SC design, and chose to optimize
the maximal and differential settlements of the design by consider-
ing the SCs’ elastic modulus and ultimate shear strength as design
variables. Juang and Wang (2013) proposed a reliability-based con-
cept for geotechnical design, termed robust geotechnical design,
and used a nondominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) to
drive a biobjective optimization. With an illustration for the design
of a spread foundation, the proposed framework was used to obtain
Pareto-optimal design solutions by minimizing both the construc-
tion cost and the probability of failure. In a similar robust
© ASCE
framework for design optimization, in which uncertainties in soil
properties and wind speed were considered, Ravichandran and
Shrestha (2020) used the NSGA-II to optimize a pile group and
piled raft foundations for a wind turbine. Furthermore, Leung
et al. (2017) proposed the use of multiobjective optimization ar-
rangements of piles in a piled raft while considering the interaction
between the foundation and superstructure in the finite-element
model using the stiffness matrix condensation method. Using a
generative design framework supported by metamodeling, Shen
et al. (2022), has shown the potential of the approach for the design
of wind turbine foundations.
In this paper, an optimization framework is proposed to solve
the problem of finding optimal design solutions of the two soil im-
provement systems by using numerical optimization. In particular,
a multiobjective optimization strategy is employed to form a Pareto
front, which contains the Pareto-optimal solutions, for system per-
formance and the construction cost of the considered soil improve-
ment systems. The design variables for both SCs and RIs are grid
spacing, column depth, and column diameter. Compared with
single-objective optimization, a multiobjective strategy explores
the search space based on the measures of at least two objectives.
When the objectives compete with each other, the result of multi-
objective optimization is a Pareto front, which is a front of (near)
optimal solutions. The proposed optimization design framework
is concerned with serviceability limit design, given that any ulti-
mate limits are satisfied. With regard to the design of floating
SCs in very loose sands and soft clays of very low undrained
shear strengths, the design engineer is to carry out bearing capacity
checks for bulging and punching at the toes of the columns sepa-
rately, preferably using detailed numerical modeling. The consider-
ation of the bearing capacity and checks using analytical
approaches can, in principle, be incorporated in the automated op-
timization workflow as constraint rules.
Methods
With respect to optimization of the system performance in the de-
sign, we are concerned with the design for serviceability to calcu-
late the settlement. Therefore, the characteristic values for loads,
soil parameters, and soil–structure interaction parameters are used
in the calculation without applying any safety factors.
Unit Cell Model
For both SCs and RIs, the calculation for a unit cell is considered for
the evaluation of the effects of soil replacement and reinforcement to
the improved soil layers. In the calculation domain, an attributable
volume is considered that includes the reinforcement and the soil sur-
rounding it. In the vertical direction, the model can extend beyond the
base of the reinforcement, as far as a considered limit depth. In the
horizontal direction, the model is extended over the column radius
and is limited at the boundaries of the attributable area, which de-
pends on the grid spacing of the reinforcements. It is assumed that,
at the model’s vertical boundaries, the lateral displacement and
shear stresses are zero. The limit depth is considered for the calcula-
tion of settlement for both improved and unimproved soil layers
under surcharge loading. The limit depth is set at the depth where
the ratio between the increased stress caused by surcharge load,
Δσ − σ ′v , and the effective vertical stress caused by overburden and
surcharge, Δσ + σ ′v , has been reduced by at least 10%. For the unit
cell model, the applied load is equivalent to the surcharge Δσ being
infinitely spread on the ground surface and, therefore, the whole ap-
plied surcharge load is decreased within the unit cell along the depth.
2 Int. J. Geomech.
For example, if a surface load Δσ = 50 kPa is acting on a submerged
soil with a unit weight under buoyancy γ′ = 10 kN/m3, using the
condition (Δσ − σ ′v )/(Δσ + σ ′v ) = 0.1 will result in a limit depth
Llimit = (Δσ − 0.1Δσ)/1.1γ′ = (50 − 0.1 × 50)/(1.1 × 10) ≈ 4 m.
Design of SCs
In engineering practice, the calculation method proposed by Priebe
(1995) is well accepted for the calculation of improvement factors,
owing to the installation of SCs in loose granular or soft cohesive
soil layers. According to Priebe (1995), the basic improvement fac-
tor n0 is calculated from the reciprocal of the area replacement ratio
A/Ac, where A and Ac are, respectively, the unit cell area and the
area of a single SC in the unit cell, and the friction angle of a
SC, φc. The effect of column compressibility is considered in the
improvement factor n1 by adding to the ratio A/Ac and the incre-
ment Δ(A/Ac). The value of Δ(A/Ac) depends on the ratio of stiff-
nesses Esc /Ess , where Esc and Ess are, respectively, the constrained
modulus of the SC and that of the host soil. Finally, the contributing
effect of earth pressure, which increases with depth, accounts for the
final improvement factor, n2 = fd × n1. The depth factor fd accounts
for the increase in the lateral support on the column with increasing
overburden pressure. It is noted that the depth factor fd must satisfy
the condition 1 ≤ fd ≤ (Esc /Ess )/(pc /ps ) (Priebe 1995), where pc and
ps are pressures caused by the column self-weight and the natural soil
at any considered improvement depth. Elastic settlement can then be
calculated for the improved soil based on the constrained modulus
improved by a factor of n2 for each of the considered soil layers.
For an unlimited spread of the surcharge load, the loading stress is
not reduced with increasing depth. Considering a large area of
ground improved with SCs, bearing capacity failure should be of
concern only at the edge of the surcharge loading. This issue is to
be separately checked by the design engineer.
Design of RIs
A typical RI system consists of rigid vertical elements arranged in a
grid with certain spacing to a depth required for load-bearing ca-
pacity and a LTP between the structure and the rigid members.
The LTP is commonly a layer of densely compacted sand, to
Fig. 1. Foundation design workflow assisted by a multiobjective optimization algorithm.
Table 1. Soil strata and soil parameters
Parameter Soft clay
Layer top below ground surface (m) 0 7
Dry unit weight γunsat (kN/m3) 15
Saturated unit weight γsat (kN/m3) 16.5
Oedometer modulus Eoed (kN/m2) 2,000
Poisson’s ratio ν (−) 0.3
© ASCE
achieve a relatively high constrained modulus and angle of internal
friction. The arching effect developed within the LTP distributes
the structural load to both the RIs and the surrounding soil. The
fraction of the load transmitted to the surrounding soil is captured
over the depth by the RIs through the development of negative skin
friction. The load distribution ratio depends on the ground and LTP
properties as well as the column diameter and spacing.
The analytical method presented in ASIRI (IREX 2012) is
followed to calculate the behavior of the RIs by considering an axi-
symmetric unit cell model, which consists of a single rigid column
and the surrounding soil over a half grid spacing. This calculation
method can be used to predict the mechanism of load transferring
from the structure, through the LTP, into the underground reinforced
by rigid columns. Interactions at the interface between the soil and the
RIs, including the development of negative and positive skin frictions,
and between the inclusion base and the load-bearing soil are also con-
sidered. Moreover, checking for the limit stress allowed in the LTP
volume above the column head is part of the RI design in ASIRI.
The load efficiency of a system of RIs is defined as the ratio
between the load carried by the column heads and the total load. Con-
sidering RIs under a concrete slab, the volume between the column
head and the bottom of the slab determines the thickness of the LTP.
Insufficient thickness of the LTP prevents the arching effect from
fully developing. Stress concentration in the LTP is, therefore, limited
by the LTP’s thickness (Chevalier et al. 2011; Blanc et al. 2013).
Negative skin friction is developed where soft soil settles more than
the inclusion. The activation of negative skin friction through the rela-
tive downward displacement of the soil with respect to the column
transfers load to the column. Below the depth at which the settlements
of the column and its surrounding soils are the same, the RI settles
more than the soil; this results in positive skin friction acting against
the axial load on the column. At the inclusion base, the column settles
and pushes against the soil, activating a base resistance force acting up-
ward against the column. As a result, the mobilized skin friction and
based resistance are governed by how much the rigid column settles.
Multiobjective Optimization
The design of an engineering system such as a geotechnical struc-
ture is a multiobjective decision making problem (Chankong and
Loose sand Soft clay Medium dense sand
11 15
16 15 17
18 16 19
9,000 5,000 35,000
0.3 0.3 0.3
3 Int. J. Geomech.
Haimes 2008), in which the interplay between system performance
and the associated construction cost must be considered. We are
concerned with multiobjective optimization problems when more
than one objective is involved in an optimal decision making pro-
cess. Unlike single-objective optimization, there exists no single
best solution with respect to all objectives in a multiobjective opti-
mization problem. A best solution to a multiobjective problem is
available conditioned on other objectives. Although one can
apply a scalarization rule to get a single-objective function and
then use a single-objective algorithm to solve the optimization
problem, doing so requires good understanding of the relation of
one objective to the others to set up a kind of summation function.
This is not a trivial task as there is often no clear relation between
the objectives. Even if the mentioned summation rule can be estab-
lished, the summation of many single objectives is likely to result in
a highly multimodal single objective, making the optimization
problem more likely to suffer more badly from local minima.
When applied to many scientific and engineering problems for
decision making, it is advantageous that the decision maker can si-
multaneously observe the influence of the possibly many optimal
solutions on each of the defined objectives separately. The genetic
algorithm is preferably used, as the intermediate solutions are a
mating pool of candidates who descend from one generation to
the next by the computer simulation of metaheuristic procedures
Fig. 2. Improvement factor and unimproved or improved settlements
for SC design solution with grid spacing a = 1.6 m, column diameter
D = 0.9 m, and column depth L = 16 m. Graphs are plotted as far as
the limit depth, Lm = 17.5 m.
Table 2. Skin friction and base resistance for RIs
Parameter Soft clay
Limit skin resistance qs (kN/m2) 50
Limit tip resistance qb (kN/m2) 0 0
© ASCE
that have analogy with the biological processes of selection, muta-
tion, and crossover. Based on an idea of Schaffer (1985), Srinivas
and Deb (1994) introduced nondominated sorting at the selection
step of the genetic algorithm to avoid convergence bias of the op-
timal solutions to one or more Pareto-optimal solutions.
Deb et al. (2002) improved the convergence speed of the NSGA
by using a fast nondominated sorting method and further intro-
duced an elitist-preserving approach and a so-called parameterless
niching operator. These additional measures help to better spread
the nondominated Pareto-optimal solutions while maintaining a rel-
atively low computational complexity of O(n2 m), where n and m
are, respectively, the number of design variables and objectives.
In this work, the nondominated sorting genetic algorithm
NSGA-II (Deb et al. 2002) is used to perform the optimization
task. As it is based on a genetic algorithm, NSGA-II can handle
not only continuous real values but also discrete set values. By
using the so-called subset values, discrete design variables are read-
ily given to the optimization process. This is advantageous for a de-
sign variable, such as column diameter, whose values are often a set
of diameters predefined by the machine manufacturer.
In the multiobjective optimization problem under consideration
in this paper, we aim to minimize the construction cost, which in-
cludes material cost, while minimizing settlement resulting from
the ground improvement design at the same time. Given a design
of SCs or RIs, let us define f1() and f2() as the cost and settlement,
respectively. The key parameters for the design of SCs and RIs,
hereafter called design variables, as they are changing values dur-
ing the optimization-based design process, are subject to optimiza-
tion. The column diameter x1 = D, grid spacing x2 = a, and column
length x3 = L are taken as three design variables. Then any set of
design variables x1, x2, x3 corresponds to the resulting objectives
for settlement f1(x1, x2, x3) and construction cost f2(x1, x2, x3).
The settlement function f1 encompasses the respective calculation
procedures for SCs and RIs described previously, whereas the
cost objective function f2 is a simple mapping from the material
volume for RIs and SCs, given the unit prices for stone aggregates
and plain concrete, respectively.
The design variables can be subject to one or more constraint
rules; for example, the grid spacing a should not exceed a certain
ratio to the column diameter D. Let us name this constraint rule
g1(x1, x2).
The multiobjective optimization problem is defined as
find: (x1 , x2 , x3 )
such that: (f1 , f2 ) is minimized (1)
while being subject to: g1
Generally, there can be as many objectives, design variables,
and constraint rules as the optimization problem requires. How-
ever, to make the run time feasible in practice, the number of design
variables is usually not more than a dozen and the number of objec-
tives is even less. Although the constraint rules are not directly re-
lated to the complexity of the multiobjective optimization problem,
a large number of constraint rules increases the computational ef-
fort related to evaluations of the additional intermediate solutions,
as design solutions that violate the constraint rules are rejected.
Loose sand Soft clay Medium dense sand
120 80 200
0 2,000
4 Int. J. Geomech.
 (a)
(c)
Fig. 3. Calculation results for RI design solution with grid spacing a = 2.0 m, RI diameter D = 0.44 m, and RI depth L = 15.6 m: (a) settlement;
(b) skin resistance; and (c) vertical force.
The optimization-based design is ideally carried out in a
computer-controlled manner. For the automated optimization pro-
cess to be executed, the multiobjective optimization procedure is
connected with the calculation model, for either RIs or SCs.
Fig. 1 shows a typical design optimization workflow assisted
with a multiobjective optimization algorithm. Compared with a
conventional approach to design SCs and RIs, the conventional de-
sign steps until the calculation model being created remains un-
changed. Additional refinement of the design is then carried out
by a numerical algorithm after the design variables, optimization
© ASCE
(b)
objectives, and constraint rules have all been defined. After the op-
timization run is finished, the user can then select from a pool of
optimal solutions, which is represented as a Pareto front, a design
solution with performance meeting a certain serviceability
requirement.
Most often the initial design solutions, which are called the ini-
tial population in the genetic algorithm, are randomly generated,
given the defined ranges or possible set values for the design vari-
ables. But if the designer has a set of feasible solutions in mind,
mostly based on settings of the design problem and engineering
5 Int. J. Geomech.
 (a)
Fig. 4. NSGA-II converged objective values for an optimization run of
the SC design. Marked points are the NSGA-II converged solutions at
the final generation. Gray points are intermediate results from previous
generations.

experience, these possible solutions can be fed as the initial popu-

lation for the optimization run.
At convergence, the optimization algorithm delivers a set of op-
timal design solutions with objective values competing with each
other. The quality for each of these optimal designs can be evalu-
ated by inspecting the corresponding objective values. The so-
called Pareto front is plotted on a multidimensional graph. In this
work, with construction cost and settlement as two competing de-
sign objectives, the resulting objectives can be viewed in a two-
dimensional graph. The designer can then pick a design solution
(b)
that meets the design requirements based on both optimization ob-
jectives: construction cost and settlement performance.

Optimization Examples

Design Problem
Let us consider a soil stratigraphy with the soil parameters given in
Table 1. The soil stratigraphy begins with a top soft clay, 7 m thick,
followed by loose sand, 4 m thick. The soft clay occurs again for
the next 4 m before a competent medium dense sand begins from
a depth of 15 m.
A gravity surcharge of 120 kPa acts on top of the ground improve-
ment system. For this magnitude of surface load, the influence of the
added vertical load due to surcharge becomes negligible from
17.5 m below ground surface (b.g.s). The limit depth for settlement cal- (c)
culation is therefore set at 17.5 m b.g.s. To have an impression of how
Fig. 5. Variables for the optimal design of the SC design: (a) grid spac-
effective each of the soil improvement systems are, the results of a one-
ing and column diameter; (b) grid spacing and column length; and
time calculation for a setup of SC and RI are presented in the following.
(c) column diameter and column length. Marked points are the
NSGA-II converged solutions at the final generation. Gray points are
Calculation Results for SCs intermediate results from previous generations.
Fig. 2 shows calculation results for a design of SCs with triangular
grid spacing a = 1.6 m, column diameter D = 0.9 m, and column
depth L = 16 m. The stone aggregates have an oedometer modulus
of 100 MPa and an internal friction angle of 42◦ . It can be observed installation, the surface settlement is reduced from 578 mm of the
that the improvement factor n2 increases quasilinearly with increas- natural soil to 152 mm of the treated soil.
ing depth in the upper soft clay up to a maximum at 6.0. It then
drops to 3.0 in the loose sand and remains so in the lower clay Calculation Results for RIs
layer. From 15 m b.g.s, where the medium dense sand begins, The considered RIs are full displacement plain concrete piles of
the improvement factor n2 is nearly 1.0. As a consequence of SC 0.44 m in diameter. The concrete strength of RIs is 10 MPa. The

© ASCE 6 Int. J. Geomech.

Table 3. Selected Pareto-optimal design solutions for the SC system
Selected solution Column diameter (m) Grid spacing (m) Column length (m) Settlement (mm) Cost (1,000 EUR)
Solution 1 0.8 1.62 14.95 157.10 90.31
Solution 5 0.8 2.00 14.27 220.57 55.98
Solution 17 0.8 2.35 14.32 256.84 41.01

(a)

Fig. 6. NSGA-II converged objective values for an optimization run of

the RI design. Marked points are the NSGA-II converged solutions at
the final generation. Gray points are intermediate results from previous
generations.

limit skin friction and base resistance for SCs given in Table 2 are
adopted for the calculation for RIs. Those are taken as resistance
capacities of bored piles, which are in agreement with soil param-
eters of the clayey soils and sands given in Table 1.
The LTP layer is 0.4 m well-compacted sand with a Young’s
modulus of 75 MPa and an internal friction angle of 38°. Fig. 3
shows the calculation results for a RI design with grid spacing a
= 2.0 m, RI diameter D = 0.44 m, and RI depth L = 15.6 m. It is
worth mentioning that the mobilized skin resistance at any depth
is additionally limited by the available earth pressure there. It is (b)
noted that, for the calculation in RIs, the oedometer moduli for
both RI and soil are adjusted following a stress-dependent relation.
Fig. 3 shows that the soil settles more than the RIs do above the
neutral line at 5.3 m b.g.s. (negative skin resistance), while the
RI axial forces increase at the same time. Below the neutral line,
the RI axial force is transferred gradually to the soil through posi-
tive skin friction. The surface settlement as a result of soil improve-
ment with RI is only 30 mm.

Design Optimization
For both of the optimization examples, a simple cost model is used
to calculate the monetary cost. It is assumed that the construction
cost is only dependent on the stone aggregates for SCs, and con-
crete volume for RIs. In particular, stone aggregates and concrete
volume cost 30 and 520 EUR/m3, respectively. This can be a fair (c)
assumption because personnel and operation cost can be thought
Fig. 7. Variables for the optimal RI design: (a) grid spacing and RI di-
of as proportional to the reinforcement volume to be constructed,
ameter; (b) grid spacing and RI length; and (c) RI diameter and RI
while the cost for mobilizing the construction machines can be con-
length. Marked points are the NSGA-II converged solutions at the
sidered as a fixed cost. The lateral extent for the calculation of cost
final generation. Gray points are intermediate results from previous
is a circular surface with a diameter of 34 m, representing the size
generations.
of a typical foundation for a circular liquid tank.

© ASCE 7 Int. J. Geomech.

Table 4. Selected Pareto-optimal design solutions for the RI system
Selected solution RI diameter (m) Grid spacing (m)
Solution 3 0.44 2.25
Solution 10 0.62 1.86
Solution 14 0.44 1.88
Optimization of SC Design
Of the design parameters for a SC system, the length of column
L, column diameter D, and grid spacing a are considered the
most influential parameters that decide the system’s performance
and cost. The column diameter D [m] is a set value variable,
which can have one of the values in the set {0.8, 0.9, 1.2}. The col-
umn spacing a [m] is a real value variable, which has its value in the
range [1.6, 2.8]. The column length L [m] is also a real value var-
iable, whose value is in the range [12, 17]. The limit depth is set
at 17.5 m for settlement calculation.
The results of optimization are given in Figs. 4 and 5 for the ob-
jectives and design variables, respectively. It can be seen in Fig. 4
that the 20 Pareto-optimal solutions have converged at the end of
50 generations of the NSGA-II run. The Pareto-optimal results pro-
vide solutions for a range of settlement from 16 to 33 cm. The op-
timal solution that delivers the smallest settlement costs EUR 90
thousand and that for the largest settlement costs only EUR 24
thousand.
Each Pareto-optimal point shown in Fig. 4 has a corresponding
set of values for the design variables shown in Fig. 5. Three repre-
sentative design solutions corresponding to the 1st, 5th, and 17th of
20 solutions are marked in Figs. 4 and 5. The numerical values of
the selected optimal solutions are given in Table 3.
Within the presented optimization settings, it can be observed in
Fig. 5 that smaller-diameter SCs are preferred over larger-diameter
SCs. The resulting optimal diameter of SC is 0.8 m for all optimal
design solutions. As column diameters are the same, differences in
construction cost and settlement performance depend on the other
two design variables: the grid spacing and column length. While
grid spacing is well spread over the design space, column length
is mainly concentrated at a depth between 12 and 15 m. Because
column length also does not vary over a large range, the system’s
construction cost and performance greatly depend on the grid spac-
ing of SCs, which is directly related to the replacement ratio. The
selected optimization results given in Table 3 clearly reveal the
importance of grid spacing on settlement and cost.
Optimization of RI Design
With the settings very similar to the optimization of the SC design,
the same three design variables for the RIs are subject to optimiza-
tion. The RI diameter D [m] is a set value variable, which can have
one of the values in the set {0.44, 0.51, 0.62}. The RI spacing a [m]
is a real value variable, which has its value in the range [1.6, 2.8].
The RI length L [m] is a real value variable, whose value is in the
range [12, 17]. As for SCs, the limit depth for the calculation of RI
settlement is set at 17.5 m.
Fig. 6 displays the Pareto-optimal solutions in the objective
space. It can be observed that the surface settlement can be as
low as 15 mm, where the construction cost is highest. The compet-
ing nature of the optimization is shown, in that the lower the con-
struction cost, the worse the performance that the system can
deliver with respect to settlement reduction. A final solution can
then be selected based on the project requirement, such as the al-
lowable settlement. Compared with the optimal design solutions
for SCs, solutions provided by RIs generally deliver an order of
© ASCE
RI length (m) Settlement (mm) Cost (1,000 EUR)
16.38 33.57 232.37
16.96 14.60 698.58
16.77 22.21 340.45
magnitude less settlement but also an order of magnitude more in
construction costs.
As can be seen in Fig. 7, the resulting optimal designs span all RI
diameters, but grid spacing is concentrated between 1.8 and 2.3 m.
The RI length is at least 15 m, where medium dense sand occurs.
The embedment of rigid RIs in medium dense sand is set on
purpose because only this soil layer provides a tip resistance
(see Table 2). Table 4 gives the exemplary solutions marked in
Figs. 6 and 7. For all the selected design solutions, the values for
RI length do not vary much. The system’s construction cost and
settlement are the results of various combinations of grid spacing
and RI diameter. If the optimal combinations are to be determined
by a geotechnical engineer, he or she must take great effort to come
close to a solution that lies in the Pareto front converged on by an
NSGA-II run.
Conclusions
It has been shown in this work that multiobjective optimization
works well for the design of soil improvement grids, with examples
for the design of SCs and RIs. The optimization method, based on a
genetic algorithm, not only provides an optimal design solution that
meets certain cost and settlement requirement but also a set of other
possible optimal designs. This is beneficial for engineering judg-
ments for other feasible design solutions, mainly for trading con-
struction cost for system performance and vice versa.
We applied a numerical method to solve the multiobjective opti-
mization problem in which the calculations for SCs and RIs are an-
alytically modeled considering the unit cell model. The related
calculation time is not of concern. If more demanding computational
design analyses, such as time-dependent consolidation and three-
dimensional models, are involved, the optimization approach is
likely to suffer from computational burden. To mitigate this issue,
a response surface construction method can be used to build
fast-to-evaluate surrogate models for the computationally heavy
model before the optimization step. If the full model, instead of
the unit cell model, is considered, it enables the use of more sophis-
ticated design analyses and will also allow for more demanding op-
timization tasks, such as the minimization of differential settlement.
Under the pressure of CO2 reduction and increasing sustainability
in construction, such design optimization using numerical methods is
to be widely practiced in the design of foundations in general and
ground improvement systems in particular in the coming years. In
line with the digital movements in construction and fast advance-
ments in optimization methods in such fields as applied mathematics
and machine learning, the developments and use of numerical opti-
mization in design and construction are better supported than ever.
Data Availability Statement
All data, models, or code that support the findings of this study are
available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
8 Int. J. Geomech.
Acknowledgments
The author thanks Dr. Techn. Chien-Hsun Chen for his kind help in
proofreading and giving valuable suggestions that improved the
quality of this manuscript. Support in implementation and valida-
tion of the ASIRI recommendations and the Priebe method from
Mr. Ragadeep Bojja, Mr. Pablo Forgoso, and Mr. Fadi Haddad is
gratefully acknowledged.
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