Location
New York, New York
Date
15 Apr 2004, 7:00pm - 8:30pm
Abstract
This paper describes the geotechnical experience gained over the last 25 years at a 21-square kilometers waterfront development along the east coast of Doha city, Qatar. The development process involved filling a shallow bay using approximately 53 million cubic meters of calcareous sand with gravel and limestone fragments, making it one of the largest land reclamation projects in the world. The 2 to 3-meter-high filling was placed on natural seabed deposits that typically consist of a 1.0 m to 1.25 m top layer of soft plastic silt followed by an approximately 3.5 meters of loose to medium sand and an extended layer of weathered limestone. The subsurface layers that posed engineering problems such as excessive settlement to constructions in the filled area were primarily the soft plastic silt and loose sand. Field and laboratory tests conducted before and after filling showed a significant soil improvement due to fill loading and the consequent soil aging. This is attributed to primary and secondary consolidation of plastic silt and secondary compression of sand. Settlement analysis considering this improvement has led to the use of shallow foundations for low-rise and relatively high-rise structures changing the general practice of overusing the costly and time-consuming deep foundations and soil replacement.
Department(s)
Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Meeting Name
5th Conference of the International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering
Publisher
University of Missouri--Rolla
Document Version
Final Version
Rights
© 2004 University of Missouri--Rolla, 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
Eid, Hisham T. and Alansari, Omar M., "Large-Scale Land Reclamation and Soil Improvement for a City Expansion" (2004). International Conference on Case Histories in Geotechnical Engineering. 15.
https://scholarsmine.mst.edu/icchge/5icchge/session08/15
Large-Scale Land Reclamation and Soil Improvement for a City Expansion
New York, New York
This paper describes the geotechnical experience gained over the last 25 years at a 21-square kilometers waterfront development along the east coast of Doha city, Qatar. The development process involved filling a shallow bay using approximately 53 million cubic meters of calcareous sand with gravel and limestone fragments, making it one of the largest land reclamation projects in the world. The 2 to 3-meter-high filling was placed on natural seabed deposits that typically consist of a 1.0 m to 1.25 m top layer of soft plastic silt followed by an approximately 3.5 meters of loose to medium sand and an extended layer of weathered limestone. The subsurface layers that posed engineering problems such as excessive settlement to constructions in the filled area were primarily the soft plastic silt and loose sand. Field and laboratory tests conducted before and after filling showed a significant soil improvement due to fill loading and the consequent soil aging. This is attributed to primary and secondary consolidation of plastic silt and secondary compression of sand. Settlement analysis considering this improvement has led to the use of shallow foundations for low-rise and relatively high-rise structures changing the general practice of overusing the costly and time-consuming deep foundations and soil replacement.
