Swelling behaviour of GPA-reinforced expansive clay beds subjected to swell-shrink cycles

TLDR: Granular pile-anchor (GPA) technique has been found to be an innovative foundation technique for expansive clays posing the dual problem of swelling and shrinkage in this paper.

Abstract: Granular pile-anchor (GPA) technique has been found to be an innovative foundation technique for expansive clays posing the dual problem of swelling and shrinkage. Swelling occurs during absorption of water and shrinkage during evaporation of water. Generally, in field expansive clay beds, swelling takes place during rainy seasons and shrinkage during summers. GPA is a recent innovative foundation technique devised to ameliorate the dual swell-shrink problem of structures founded on expansive clay beds. The other innovative techniques are drilled piers, belled piers and under-reamed piles. Laboratory scale model studies and field scale experiments on GPAs yielded useful results and revealed that swelling of expansive clay beds was effectively controlled by GPA technique. Studies on swell-shrink behaviour of GPA-reinforced clay beds have not been performed so far. This paper presents results obtained from laboratory scale model studies on GPA-reinforced expansive clay beds subjected to alternate cycles of ...