Location
Chicago, Illinois
Date
02 May 2013, 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Abstract
The Thi Vai Container Port is constructed on reclaimed ground along the Thi Vai River in the Mekong delta approximately 90 km southeast of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The soil profile consists of an about 15 to 23 m thick deposit of soft, normally consolidated, highly compressible clay deposited on dense to compact sand. A soil improvement scheme was instigated aiming to reduce long-term settlement after construction of the facilities and improve the stability of the river bank. The scheme combined wick drains and, along the river bank, soil cement columns and toe revetments. The wick drains were installed at a spacing of about 1.5 m and a staged surcharge was placed to a maximum height of 6 through 6.6 m to bring about the consolidation of the clay. After a surcharge height of 4.7 m had been in place for about three months and the measured settlement was about 1.2 m, a slope failure occurred along about 200 m length of the riverbank. An investigation indicated that the three-month consolidation period had not increased clay undrained shear strength as anticipated and that the slope failure had broken the soil cement columns at about 11 m depth below the original ground surface. Costs to remedy the collapsed and damaged area amounted to about US$10 million. The paper presents the background information, soil failure details, results of bank stability analyses, and the solution chosen for the remedial construction.
Department(s)
Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Meeting Name
7th Conference of the International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering
Publisher
Missouri University of Science and Technology
Document Version
Final Version
Rights
© 2013 Missouri University of Science and Technology, All rights reserved.
Creative Commons Licensing
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Document Type
Article - Conference proceedings
File Type
text
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Hai, Nguyen Minh and Fellenius, Bengt H., "Failure of Embankment on Soil-Cement Columns for Thi Vai Port, Vietnam" (2013). International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering. 20.
https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/icchge/7icchge/session03/20
Failure of Embankment on Soil-Cement Columns for Thi Vai Port, Vietnam
Chicago, Illinois
The Thi Vai Container Port is constructed on reclaimed ground along the Thi Vai River in the Mekong delta approximately 90 km southeast of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The soil profile consists of an about 15 to 23 m thick deposit of soft, normally consolidated, highly compressible clay deposited on dense to compact sand. A soil improvement scheme was instigated aiming to reduce long-term settlement after construction of the facilities and improve the stability of the river bank. The scheme combined wick drains and, along the river bank, soil cement columns and toe revetments. The wick drains were installed at a spacing of about 1.5 m and a staged surcharge was placed to a maximum height of 6 through 6.6 m to bring about the consolidation of the clay. After a surcharge height of 4.7 m had been in place for about three months and the measured settlement was about 1.2 m, a slope failure occurred along about 200 m length of the riverbank. An investigation indicated that the three-month consolidation period had not increased clay undrained shear strength as anticipated and that the slope failure had broken the soil cement columns at about 11 m depth below the original ground surface. Costs to remedy the collapsed and damaged area amounted to about US$10 million. The paper presents the background information, soil failure details, results of bank stability analyses, and the solution chosen for the remedial construction.
