Role of MICP treatment area in mitigating liquefaction-induced settlements for shallow foundation

Abstract

Microbially Induced Calcite Precipitation (MICP) is an effective ground improvement technique for mitigating liquefaction-induced ground deformations. However, limited research has explored its application for reducing shallow foundation settlement in liquefiable soils. Understanding the extent of the area requiring MICP treatment beneath a foundation is critical to minimizing settlement. This study aims to evaluate the impact of the improvement area of MICP-treated blocks on mitigating liquefaction-induced settlements of shallow foundations using a series of 1 g shake table model tests. The dimensions of the treated blocks were determined based on the Boussinesq load distribution chart and treated to achieve a shear wave velocity of 250 m/s. Scaled shake table tests were conducted, modeled after a large-scale shake table experiment. The testing setup included three soil layers with different relative densities, with a shallow foundation placed on the surface crust. MICP-treated blocks of varying sizes were placed beneath the foundation. The results demonstrated that when the MICP-treated block was configured as either L×B× 1.25B or 1.5L× 1.5B×B - where L and B are the length and width of the foundation - resulted in substantial improvements, with reductions of 80% in foundation settlement and 98 % in foundation tilting. Notably, the L×B× 1.25B configuration achieved performance similar to the 1.5L× 1.5B×B, while reducing the treated volume by 44%. Furthermore, the results emphasize the importance of optimizing the MICP-treated area to effectively mitigate liquefaction, providing valuable insights into the practical application of MICP for improving the performance of shallow foundations in liquefiable soils.

Keywords

Foundation settlement / Liquefaction mitigation / MICP / Shake table test / Ground improvement

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Md Kausar Alam: Methodology, Formal analysis, Data curation, Conceptualization. Ramin Motamed: Writing - review & editing, Supervision, Resources, Methodology, Investigation, Funding acquisition, Conceptualization.

Data availability

Data are available on request.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by funding through the GAANN Fellowship which stands for Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need, which is a program sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education. We would like to extend our gratitude to Dr. Jason T. DeJong and Dr. Soomin Ham at the University of California, Davis, for their invaluable guidance on the MICP testing procedure. Additionally, we thank Dr. Ben Ma at the University of Nevada, Reno, for his generous help with the bacteria culture preparation.

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