Hydraulic modeling of soil reinforcement by biocalcification

Redouane Yahiaoui, Benoît Courcelles

In the proceedings of: GeoMontréal 2013: 66th Canadian Geotechnical Conference; 11th joint with IAH-CNC

Session: Soil Stabilization I

ABSTRACT: In the context of increasing demographic pressures around the world, soil improvement techniques constitute viable alternatives to expensive foundations and the biocalcification of granular soils appeared as a promising technique relying on the formation of carbonate precipitates. Necessary for the design of the injections performed during the process, the paper presents an adaptation of the hydraulic model proposed by Van Wijngaarden et al. (2011), which considers a variable porosity as a result of the formation of precipitates, and proposes a computation of the hydraulic conductivity relying on the evolution of the porosity and the specific surface according to the Kozeny-Carman relation. The simulations have been calibrated on laboratory tests performed by Chou et al. (2012) and demonstrated that the precipitates can be assimilated to spheres for the calculation of the specific surface and that bacteria can be considered as nucleation sites in a first approximation.

RÉSUMÉ: Dans un contexte ration des sols constituent une alternative viable aux fondations onéreuses et la biocalcification des sols granulaires est apparue comme une technique prometteuse reposant sur la formation de précipités de carbonates. Nécessaire au dimensionnement des injmodèle proposé par Van Wijngaarden et al. (2011), qui considère une porosité variable suite à la formation de précipités, et propose le calcul de la conductivité hydraulique selon le modèle de Kozeny-porosité et la surface spécifique. Le modèle a été calibré sur les essais de laboratoires réalisés par Chou et al. (2012) et a démontré que les précipités pouvaient être assimilés à des sphères pour le calcul de la surface spécifique et que les bactéries peuvent être considérées comme des sites de nucléation en première approximation.

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Cite this article:
Redouane Yahiaoui; Benoît Courcelles (2013) Hydraulic modeling of soil reinforcement by biocalcification in GEO2013. Ottawa, Ontario: Canadian Geotechnical Society.

@article{GeoMon2013Paper322,author = Redouane Yahiaoui; Benoît Courcelles,title = Hydraulic modeling of soil reinforcement by biocalcification,year = 2013}