Experimental Study for the Effect of Static and Dynamic Loads on Clay Utilizing Geofoam

Abstract

The recent and continuous industrial development at Port-Said necessitates many factories and gas plants to be constructed on its thick graduated clay soil. Accordingly, suitable foundation systems are to be developed to resist the expected dynamic effects and vibrations of the heavy machinery and rotating masses utilized for such activities. Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) Geofoam was introduced as an efficient dynamic damper and lightweight solution for many geotechnical problems. In this research, the effect of the static loads in machinery shutdown state and the dynamic loads in working state on the settlement behavior of a square footing resting on Port-Said clay is studied experimentally, both in the presence and absence of EPS. The results showed that the use of EPS can considerably reduce the maximum settlement under machine foundation.

Keywords

• machine foundation
• eps
• expanded polystyrene geofoam
• dynamic analysis