Ground Improvement Seminar Topic

Suppose while working as a Geotechnical Engineer, we encounter the following situation: a three-storied office building with load bearing walls has to be constructed. At the site, loosely dumped material exits down to a depth of 7 meters underlain by dense sand. Had the soil at shallow depth strong, such a building could have been founded on strip footings. Three decades ago you would have had to choose between either giving up this site altogether and finding a new site or founding the building on raft or on piles. Both raft and piles are far more expensive than strip footings. Today you have another option, an option that engineers have gradually developed the technology for the last two/three decades, an option that emerged because when engineers encounter such situations they began to ask themselves that “can I make this soil stronger?” and as an answer they develop the techniques to modify and improve soil.