The use of prefabricated vertical drains with vacuum preloading and surcharge preloading is now common practice and is proving to be one of the most effective ground improvement techniques known. The factors affecting its performance, such as the smear zone, the drain influence zone, and drain unsaturation, are discussed in this paper. In order to evalu...
View ArticleThis article compares and analyses the behaviour of three test embankments. The soil foundation consisted of
normally consolidated clay overlain by a thick sand surface layer. The embankments were rapidly constructed until failure,
which occurred after approximately 50 days. Two of the embankments were reinforced, one including p...
During the construction of a building, a transfer of loads occurs from the columns which tend to settle more to
those that tend to settle less. This observable fact can be attributed to the mechanism called static soil-structure interaction
(SSI). In order to understand this mechanism, which is often not considered in designs, an...
The energy efficiency in SPT is generally evaluated based on the nominal drop height. Measurements of the
drop height in systems different from those used in Brazil have shown that the drop height values can be significantly
different from the nominal ones, inclusively in those systems where lifting-releasing operations are autom...
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