One of the common geotechnical problems is the construction on soft soil and the improvement of its geotechnical properties to meet the design requirements. A stone column is one of the well-known techniques used to improve the geotechnical properties of soft soils. Sometimes thick layers of soft soil imposed the designer to use floating stone columns for improvement of such soil; in this case, the designer will be lost the end bearing of the stone column. In this study, the effects of several patterns of floating stone columns distribution under footing on the bearing capacity of soil and the distribution of excess porewater pressure are investigated. The soft soil used in this study has a very low undrained shear strength (cu) of

Reinforced concrete barriers have been commonly used in protecting the important building because the response of R.C. barriers subjected to blast loading is practically more acceptable than other materials used to build the barriers. In this study, the response of R.C. barriers was detected due to the blast effects caused by two charge weights (50 kg and 400 kg); ANSYS 14 was used to simulate the problem. A horizontal distance of 2 m between the explosive TNT charge and the front face of wall was taken. The pressure on the front face of the concrete barriers was measured at three levels. The R.C. barrier was entirely damaged when subjected to the blast effects caused by 400 kg TNT explosion bomb. However, the 50 kg TNT charge had

This research presents and discuss the results of experimental investigation carried out on geogrids model to study the behavior of geogrid in the loose sandy soil. The effect of location eccentricity, depth of first layer of reinforcement, vertical spacing, number and type of reinforcement layers have been investigated. The results indicated that the percentage of bearing improvement a bout (22 %) at number of reinforced layers N=1 and about (47.5%) at number of reinforced layers N=2 for different Eccentricity values when depth ratio and vertical spacing between layers are (0.5B and 0.75B) respectively

As a result of the growth of economic, demographic and building activities in Iraq, that necessitates carrying out geotechnical investigations for the dune sand to study behavior of footings resting on these soils. To determine these properties and to assess the suitability of these materials for resting shallow foundation on it, an extensive laboratory testing program was carried out. Chemical tests were carried out to evaluate any possible effects of the mineralogical composition of the soil on behavior of foundation rested on dune sands.
Collapse tests were also conducted to trace any collapse potential. Loading tests were carried out for optimum water content and different shapes of footing. Loading test recommends manufacturing o

The bearing capacity of layered soil studies was carried out with various approaches such as experimental, theoretical, numerical, and combination of them. This work is focused on the settlement and bearing capacity of shallow foundations subjected to the vertical load placed on the surface of layered soils. The experimental part was performed by manufacturing soil cubic container (570 mm x 570 mm x 570 mm).  A model square footing of width 60 mm was placed at the surface of the soil bed. The relative density of sand was constant at 60%, and the clay was prepared with a density of 19.2 (kN/m3) and water content of 14.6%. PLAXIS 3D FEM was used to simulate the experimental tests and performing a parametric study. The results showed

The use of external posttensioning technique for strengthening reinforced concrete girders has been considerably studied by many researchers worldwide. However, no available data are seen regarding strengthening full-scale composite prestressed concrete girders with external posttensioned technique under static and repeated loading. In this research, four full-scale composite prestressed I-shape girders of 16 m span were fabricated and tested under static and repeated loading up to failure. Accordingly, two girders were externally strengthened with posttensioned strands, while the other two girders were left without strengthening. The experimental tests include deflection, cracking load, ultimate strength and strains at midspan, a