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ABSTRACT
Slope stability is one of the most important problems in geotechnical engineering because failure could cause catastrophic environmental and human disasters, in addition to large economical losses due to such failure. The purpose of this paper is to study the effect of using piles in stabilizing the embankments of Al-Salam Canal in Northern Egypt. The canal left side is a formed soft clay embankment which is mainly formed from dredging and cleaning of the bottom of the nearby AlManzala lake. Sudden and progressive failures took place in the left side embankment over years for many reasons. These failures are mainly due to the nature of the soft clay forming the slope in addition to the existence of gypsum and peat pockets and thin layers within the slope in many locations. Thus, it was suggested to use a row of reinforced concrete piles to stabilize the left side embankment of the canal. Analysis of the slope stabilized by piles is performed using finite element analysis. Although the slope stabilizing piles were able to stabilize the slope to some extent, increasing the number of pile rows was not effective in increasing the safety factor in return. Another slope stabilizing technique is studied herein using lime treatment. The proposed lime treatment technique was effective in stabilizing the slope more than the slope stabilizing piles, even in the zones containing the peat layer.
KEYWORDS: Slope Stability; Piles; Soft Clay; Peat; Lime Treatment; Numerical Analysis; Slope Stabilizing Piles.
INTRODUCTION
Slope stabilizing piles are widely used to stabilize slopes. These piles are mainly subjected to lateral pressure from the horizontal movement caused by the slope sliding mass. Many techniques have been proposed in order to analyze slopes stabilized by piles like Rowe and Poulos (1979), Ito et al., (1981), Poulos (1995, 1999), Chow (1996), Bransby and Springman (1996, 1999), Lee et al. (1995), Hassiotis et al. (1997). Cai and Ugai (2000) studied the effect of stabilizing piles on the stability of a slope by three-dimensional elasto-plastic shear strength reduction finite element method. Ausilio et al. (2001) presented a kinematic approach for the stability analysis of slopes reinforced with piles. Chen and Martin (2002) examined the existence of an arching zone around landslide stabilizing pile groups for granular and fine-grained soils. Nian et al. (2008) showed that a combination of the limit analysis kinematic approach and the strength reduction technique provides a convenient and effective approach for stability analysis of slopes in anisotropic and non-homogeneous slopes. Wei and Cheng, (2009) revealed that the critical slip surface was found - 3803 -
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to be divided into two parts when the pile spacing is small, and these two parts gradually get connected with increasing the pile spacing till a clear critical slip surface is formed. The newly formed critical slip surface is similar to that formed in the case of a slope without stabilizing piles. In the nineteen seventies, it was realized that development and construction activities must be extended to reach Sinai Peninsula at the eastern borders of Egypt. The Sinai proposed development plan was based mainly on increasing the agriculture activities. It was decided to extend the developed region to go beyond the Suez canal and to exploit the unique position of Suez canal in development of the region. Later on, it was decided to construct Al-Salam canal to provide large areas with sufficient irrigation water to reclaim an extra 620 thousand feddans along the canal length till reaching Sinai Peninsula. Al-Salam canal in Northern Egypt starts at the Nile river estuary from Damietta and transmits the excess Nile water into Sinai Peninsula. The canal embankments extend for a length of about 89.750 km from the Damietta branch till reaching the Suez Canal, as shown in Figure (1).
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suggest the proposed stabilizing technique including slope stabilizing piles. Of concern at that time, was the piling construction technique. CFA (Continuous Flight Auger) piles will not assure hindering the caving of the soft soil inside the bored pile. However, hammer driving will induce vibrations that will cause local or general failure in the embankment body. On the one hand, using full displacement piles will compress and consequently improve the soft soil behavior laterally, while, displacement piles remain mainly driven piles. Thus, it was decided to use steel casing in the driving to induce the displacement pile effect, and the driving process is performed using vibratory drivers. Keeping the frequency of vibrations lower than the natural frequency of the soil in which the piles are being driven, along with minimizing the driving amplitude have successfully accomplished both tasks. These tasks are employing displacement piles, and prevent caving of the soil in case of using CFA piles, while excluding the pile driving effects. The embankment stabilization using piles is initially assessed using the simplified Janbu method, followed by another assessment using the wedge method. Both solution techniques using two slope stabilizing pile rows led to safety factors of more than 1.50, satisfying the requirements of the Egyptian Code (2001). Therefore, in this study the effect of slope stabilizing piles in increasing the safety factor of the embankment is exclusively studied in this research using the finite element software Phase2.
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the longitudinal direction of the canal. Lateral tie beams having the same cross-section and reinforcement were used to connect the longitudinal connecting beams laterally. The tie beams were repeated each 3.75 m in the longitudinal direction.
Figure 3: Top View of the Stabilizing System Showing the Positions of the Two Rows of Stabilizing Piles, the Seepage Cutoff Wall, and the Sand Drains.
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Figure 4: Finite Element Model of the Stabilized Canal Embankment. Table 1: Canal Soil Properties.
Soil Type Soft Silty Clay (1) Soft Silty Clay (2) Soft Silty Clay (3) Stiff Clay layer Peat layer Dense sand Gravel layer sat (kN/m3) 17 16 17 17 11 18 19 E (MPa) 1.70 1.40 2.00 5.90 0.30 100.0 200.0 0.45 0.45 0.45 0.45 0.45 0.30 0.30 c (kPa) 16.0 14.0 23.0 45.0 3.0 0.0 0.0 (o) 5 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 38 45 (o) 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 8 15
In which: sat : Saturated unit weight; E : Soil Young's modulus; : Poisson's ratio; c : Soil cohesion; : Angle of internal friction; and : Dilation angle, can be approximated as (-30). It should be noted that these soil properties have been obtained from several field and laboratory tests, except for the peat layer properties which are back calculated from the numerical analysis that gives the minimum applicable safety factor of 1.0, because several embankment failures took place in this zone.
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safety factor required by the Egyptian Code of Practice, (2001). Moreover, using a single row of stabilizing piles instead of the proposed system containing two pile rows resulted in reducing the safety factor of the slope to (1.20), which comprises only about 5% reduction in that factor. Economically, almost doubling the cost to gain 5% increase in the safety factor is not feasible, especially if both conditions did not achieve the code requirements. The presence of the peat layer underneath such clay slope, at approximately the bed level, presents a pre-existing sliding surface that reduces the safety factor into such low values. Although using the stabilizing system has blocked such type of failure, but in return it allows for forming a new failure surface in front of the newly constructed stabilizing pile rows. Previous research indicated that the best position for such stabilizing piles is in the middle height of the embankment, in which the pile rows divide the sliding surface into two parts, Wei et al., (2009). In addition, installing the stabilizing pile rows in such position achieves the target of placing such piles in almost the middle of the peat layer sliding surface. The numerically calculated embankment maximum horizontal displacement was 34.75 cm before using the proposed stabilizing system at the slope toe, and without even applying the traffic loads. On the other hand, after using the stabilizing system and applying the surface equivalent traffic loads, which equals 33.35 kN/m2, an additional horizontal displacement of 15.15 cm and 14.30 cm took place behind and in front of the piles, respectively, as shown in Figure (5). This emphasizes that the piles have actually divided the sliding mass into two zones. The relatively large values of horizontal displacement indicate the weak nature of such soft clay and peat, which resulted in such high lateral displacement values under normal traffic loads.
Figure 5: Colored Contour Shading of the Horizontal Displacement under Equivalent Traffic Loads.
The settlement due to the embankment own weight only was found to be 24.30 cm before using the stabilizing piles. However, the calculated embankment settlement due to traffic load is found to be 23.30 cm, as presented in Figure (6). The results from the loading test performed in the extensive monitoring zone showed that the recorded total settlement at the top of the embankment was 18.0 cm, Youssef and Al-Gayar, (2000). The differences between the calculated and recorded settlement values may be due to the relative increase in the soft clay layers stiffness as caused by the loading process. Such vertical increase in soil stiffness in addition to the lateral soft clay improvement caused by using full displacement pile construction technique led to a gradual improvement in the soil properties.
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Figure 6: Settlement Contour Shading of the Stabilized Slope under Equivalent Traffic Loads.
PARAMETRIC STUDY
The canal embankments extend for a great length of about 90 km. The soil layer stratification, strength and mechanical properties, layer heights could be drastically changed. For the sake of covering up the most important parameter changes, a parametric study is performed to highlight the effect of the soil and stabilizing system parameters on the safety factors of the stabilized slope. The modeled embankment is cohesive soil containing a peat layer and followed by dense sand. Figure (7) illustrates a schematic diagram for the studied slope geometry and configurations including the followings: c: Soil cohesion ranging between 10 and 50 (kN/m2), with small effective friction angles ( ' = 5o and 10o). These parameters do cover most of the short term studied cases, and allows for studying some long term cases in which the undrained cohesion (cu) is replaced by the effective cohesion intercept (c') and () is replaced by '. H: Embankment slope height, varying from 3 to 10 meters; : Slope angle, varying from 26.57 to 70 degrees; P: Depth of 0.50 m thick peat layer, varying from 1 to 16 meters from the slope crest; N: Number of piles rows, slope studied for one and two piles rows; Hw: Height of water in the canal, varying from 0 to slope height H - 1.00 m; Other parameters included the presence of the external load; along with the concrete stabilizing pile properties such as pile length, diameter, and stiffness.
Hw
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= 0o = 5o = 10o
F.S.
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
Figure 8: Effect of Soil Undrained and Effective Cohesion on the F.S. (H = 5 m, Slope 2:1, One Pile Row, = 0, 5, 10).
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3.00
2.50
F.S.
2.00
1.50
1.00
0.50
10
12
Figure 9: Effect of Slope Height on F.S. (Slope 2:1, One Pile Row, cu = 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40 kPa).
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2.25
cu = 20 kPa cu = 35 kPa
2.00
F.S.
1.75
1.50
1.25
1.00
10
15
20
Figure 10: Location of the Peat Layer Versus F.S. (H = 5 m, One Pile Row, cu = 20, 35 kPa).
3.00
2.50
F.S.
2.00
1.50
1.00
0.50
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
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to (w z) where (w ) is the water unit weight and (z) is the selected water depth in the waterway. The most critical case is considered the rapid drawdown case in which a sudden emptying of the water from the waterway took place. Consequently, the water pressure triangle is suddenly removed while the embankment slope is still being fully saturated, and thus having the highest possible unit weight. For soft soils having undrained cohesion values of cu = 20 kPa or less, the embankment is not safe in the case of rapid drawdown. Thus, additional methods must be implemented to stabilize the slope if any construction activities will require sudden emptying of the canal. For higher value of undrained soil cohesion, the slope safety factor reached 1.37 in the case of rapid drawdown. Although the safety factor didn't reach the required value of 1.50 for stiffer soils, the slope will actually remain in stable condition, and failure is not predicted in such case. At cu = 20 kPa, the slope safety factor will not reach the recommended value of 1.50 even if the water depth in the canal is 4.0 m or higher. For higher undrained cohesion value at cu = 30 kPa and to ensure that the slope safety factor will reach the recommended value (1.50), the water depth in the canal shouldn't be less than 2.0 m.
2.00 cu = 20 kPa cu = 30 kPa 1.50
F.S.
1.00 0.50 0
Figure 12: Effect of Water Level on the F.S. (H = 5 m, cu = 20, 30 kPa, One Pile Row).
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extended below the sliding surface with sufficient distance to avoid mobilizing the sliding mass. The slope safety factor also decreased when the pile tip does not end within the sand layer. This may be due to the fixity provided by relatively higher lateral sand resistance.
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Figure 13: Reaction of Unslaked Lime with Clay, (after Broms, 2004).
Charbit (2009) mentioned that the Swedish code of practice assumed that the columns and the surrounding soil are considered composite material, and the columns are assumed to fail in shear. However, several studies showed that failures in bending are more probable, which means that the strength of the embankment might be overestimated.
Figure 14: FEM Mesh of the Distribution and Position of Lime Columns.
Broms (2004) stated that Lahtinen and Vepslinen (1983) have back calculated an average modulus of elasticity of 15 to 25 MPa for lime columns. For laboratory samples, the ratio E50/cu,col could be assumed equal 75 for lime, where E50 is the lime column modulus of elasticity at qu/2, cu,col is the undrained shear strength of the columns and qu is the unconfined compressive strength. The main properties of the lime columns that were used in the slope analysis are summarized in Table (2).
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Modeling the left side embankment stabilized with lime was performed by the same finite element program Phase2. The calculated slope safety factor after soil improvement using lime columns is equal to 1.66, for the embankment stabilized with seven columns. The slope safety factor exceeded the recommended value of 1.50, while the slope safety factor for the embankment stabilized with reinforced concrete stabilizing piles was only 1.25. The calculated maximum settlement under traffic loaded slope stabilized with piles is equal to 23.30 cm, whereas this calculated settlement value is reduced to 8.80 cm when lime columns are used, as shown in Figure (15).
Figure 15: Colored Contour Shading of the Lime Treated Embankment Settlement, after Lime Treatment
Figure (16) represents the lateral displacement of the embankment improved with lime columns. The maximum horizontal displacement is found to be 6.90 cm compared with 14.30 cm of the embankment stabilized with piles. Although the lime columns take relatively long time to increase the soil shear strength, but it is an effective method to treat the soft clay and organic soil with relatively lower costs compared to the reinforced concrete piles. In addition, the lime is available and relatively cheap material in Egypt. However, special industrial safety measures should be considered for the workers when installing lime columns. The permeability increases normally with lime treatment. Large differences can be expected between the permeabilities determined from laboratory samples and those obtained from field tests. This may be attributed to the cracks and fissures that took place after lime treatment in lime columns which could affect the test results, Broms (2004). Broms (2003) mentioned that "Broms and Boman, 1977a, Leminen and Rathmayer, 1979, Bengtsson and Holm, 1984, Hansbo and Torstensson, 1979, and Soyez et al., 1983, based on field tests, reported that the lime columns could function as vertical drains and succeeded in reducing
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the stabilized soil consolidation time". This is an additional stabilizing effect added to the chemical lime treatment reaction.
Figure 16: Colored Contour Shading of the Embankment Horizontal Displacement, after Lime Treatment.
It is recommended to use a permeability ratio (kcol/ksoil) equal to 40 in designing the columns, where, kcol is the columns permeability and ksoil is the permeability of the unstabilized soil. Thus, the pore water pressure should be observed during and after the column installation, Broms (2004). A decision should be taken about replacing one of the columns at the berm with a cutoff wall to block the two-way seepage from the waterway into the lake and vice versa through the embankment. The permeability of the seepage cutoff wall was chosen to be about 1.4*10-7 cm/sec, based on permeability tests that were performed by the Soil Mechanics Laboratory of Cairo University (2000). By analyzing this case with the finite element program, the slope safety factor is found to be (1.63) which is slightly lower than the case of no seepage cutoff wall is used. The values of the settlement and horizontal displacement under the equivalent traffic loads seemed to be unchanged. A critical case would arise when the rapid drawdown takes place in the canal, and the slope is still saturated with water. In such case, the slope is found to be unsafe, because the water pressure on the slope shares in resisting the slope disturbing forces. To ensure that the slope is safe and reaches about 1.50 as a safety factor, the water level in the canal beside the embankment shouldn't be less than about 2.00 m. In such case, the process of the slope widening will not require emptying the waterway. For constructing any projects in the future which could require emptying the canal, long-term analysis should be carried out on the soil and accordingly, a decision should be taken to choose other methods to stabilize the slope or to satisfy with the lime treatment columns as stabilizing system. The rapid drawdown case could be avoided by reducing the water level in the waterway over a longer period of time allowing for synchronized reduction of the water level in the waterway with consequent reduction of the water in the side slopes. The environmental impact of the lime treatment should be carefully assessed in such condition especially the pH value of the groundwater in the embankment and the nearby water in the canal. The seepage cutoff wall could function as an environmental barrier in such case.
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CONCLUSION
Based on the analysis made by the finite element program (Phase2), the following conclusions could be obtained: 1- For the very soft and soft clay slopes including peat layers through their profiles, the piles are not that effective as a stabilizing system. 2- Using two pile rows of stabilizing piles have not resulted in increasing the slope safety factor to the target value of 1.50. 3- Rapid drawdown of the water inside the waterway is not recommended to avoid slope failures as it was considered the most critical case when the canal is empty and the soil is saturated. However, if necessary it could be performed over a relatively long period of time to allow for the water level and saturation of the slopes to be reduced with time. 4- For soft clay containing organic layers, chemical soil treatment such as lime columns is considered an effective way to increase the slope safety factor and to increase the shear strength parameters in the failed region, but further parametric study, laboratory, and field tests should be performed in order to have a better view for stabilizing the soft soil with lime columns and to determine the different columns characteristics. Feasibility study should also be performed in such case.
REFERENCES
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[10] Charbit, B., (2009), "Numerical Analysis of Laterally Loaded Lime/Cement Columns", M.Sc, Division of Soil and Rock Mechanics, Department of Civil and Architectural Engineering, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Stockholm, Sweden. [11] Chen, C. Y., Martin, G.R., (2002), "SoilStructure Interaction for Landslide Stabilizing Piles". Computers and Geotechnics, Vol. 29, pp.363386. [12] Chow, Y.K., (1996), "Analysis of Piles Used for Slope Stabilization". International Journal for Numerical and Analytical Methods in Geomechanics, Vol. 20, pp.635646. [13] Das, B. M., (1983), "Advanced Soil Mechanics", Washington: Hemisphere Pub. Corp., McGraw-Hill, New York. [14] Egyptian Code of Practice for Soil Mechanics, Design and Construction of Foundations, (2001), Part No. 8, Stability of Slopes. [15] Hassiotis, S., Chameau, J. L., and Gunaratne, M., (1997), "Design Method for Stabilization of Slopes with Piles", ASCE, Journal of Geotechnical and Geoenviromental Engineering Division, Vol. 123, No. 4, pp.314-323. [16] Holm, G., Trnk, R and Ekstrm, A., (1983a), "Improving Lime Column Strength with Gypsum", Proc. 8th European Conf. on Soil. Mech. a. Found. Engng., Helsinki, Finland, Vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 903-907. [17] Ito, T., and Matsui, T., Hong, W. P., (1981a), "Design Method for Stabilizing Piles against Landslide (One Row of Piles)". Soils and Foundations, Japanese Society of Soil mechanics and Foundation Engineering, Vol. 21, No. 1, pp. 1-13. [18] Ito, T., and Matsui, T., Hong, W. P., (1981b), "Extended Design Method for MultiRow Stabilizing Piles against Landslide". Soils and Foundations, Japanese Society of Soil Mechanics and Foundation Engineering, Vol. 22, No. 1, pp. 21-37. [19] Lee, C.Y, Hull, T.S, and Poulos H.G., (1995), "Simplified Pile Slope Stability Analysis", Computers and Geotechnics, Vol. 17, pp.1-16. [20] Nian, T.K., Chen, G.Q., Luan, M.T., Yang, Q. and Zheng D.F., (2008), "Limit Analysis of the Stability of Slopes Reinforced with Piles against Landslide in NonHomogeneous and Anisotropic Soils", Canadian Geotechnical Journal, Vol. 45, pp.10921103. [21] Poulos, H.G., (1995), "Design of Reinforcing Piles to Increase Slope Stability", Canadian Geotechnical Journal, Vol. 32, pp.808-818. [22] Poulos, H. G., (1999), "Design of Reinforcing Piles to Increase Slope Stability", Slope Stability Engineering, Yagi, Yamagami, Jiang, Editors, Balkema, Rotterdam. [23] PHASE 2, Version 8.005, (2011), "Rocscience Inc.", Ontario, Canada. [24] Rao, K. N., (2006), "Numerical Modeling and Analysis of Pile Supported Embankments", M.Sc. Thesis, the University of Texas at Arlington. [25] Rowe, R. K., and Poulos, H. G., (1979), "A Method for Predicting the Effect of Piles on Slope Behavior", Third International Conference on Numerical Methods in Geomechanics, Aachen, pp. 1073-1085. [26] Salem, T. N., (1997), "Analysis of Offshore Piles", PhD. Thesis, Department of Structural Design, Zagazig University, Zagazig, Egypt.
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[27] Wei, W.B., Cheng, Y.M., and Li, L., (2009), "Three-Dimensional Slope Failure Analysis by the Strength Reduction and Limit Equilibrium Methods". Computers and Geotechnics, Vol. 36, pp.7080. [28] Youssef, A. M., and Al-Gayar, M. S., (2000), "Technical Report of the Loading Embankment Results Performed at the Left Side Embankment of Al-Salam Canal from km 7.700 to km 7.750", Faculty of Engineering, Al-Mansoura University.
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