Effect of nanosilica stabilisation on the bearing capacity under undrained conditions

Abstract

Due to the increasing necessity of building on soils with insufficient bearing capacity, the development of methods for soil improvement is an important geotechnical engineering issue. One of the innovative methods of soil stabilisation is the use of nano-additives. The paper presents the influence of nanosilica on the bearing capacity under the footing under undrained conditions. For this purpose, a simple and quick unconfined compression test was used to evaluate the undrained shear strength of selected silty soil. Tests were conducted for soil without additives and with nanosilica contents of 1, 3 and 5%. All samples were compacted to the maximum dry density in a Proctor apparatus, and strength tests were conducted after 7 days of curing. The results clearly show an increase in undrained shear strength with increasing nanosilica content. Based on these data, a parametric analysis of the bearing capacity under the strip footing was performed for 4 variants of nanosilica content and for 9 loading cases. Thus, the impact of stabilisation in a practical engineering issue was presented. For all load cases the optimal dimensions of the foundation were determined. In addition, for the selected case, calculations were made for a fixed foundation dimension. All computations were performed in accordance with Eurocode 7 with GEO5 software.