IMPROVING THE BEARING CAPACITY OF SOILS AND MAKING FOUNDATIONS ON WEAK SOILS

How to improve the bearing capacity of soil, and making foundations on the weak soils is also a question for which the foundations are left open for one rainy season to enable the soil to settle down, and it will also be known whether the natural movements of the soil below due to increase in moisture are likely to cause any damage. Where in the foundations in bad soils can be improved by way of (1) Increasing the depth of the foundation except when the material grows wetter, as the depth increases. (2) Compacting the soil by ramming. (3) Ramming in sand, gravel, moorum, broken stone or brick bats in situ between the foundation concrete and soil. This is useful for silt or black cotton soils and also clayey soils. (4) Removing the poor soil and filling the gap with sand, rubble stone, gravel or other hard material. This will increase the bearing power to about twice its original value. In this method the foundation trenches are excavated to a depth of about 1.5 m, and 45 cm wider and filled with the hard material to a thickness of about 30 to 45 cm and heavily rammed with water, so as to force the hard material into the soft soil. If the filled material is buried completely, then other layer of the hard material may be filled into a depth of about 15 to 23 cm and well rammed. This method is especially useful for black cotton soils. Cement grouting the rammed materials will make the foundations much harder :-- Er Fateh chand Guleria, Director RTI welfare Association registered number HPCD, 3552 , Bilaspur Himachal pradesh phone number, 9459334377